By: Dale Weckbacher
Ephesians 6:1-3
Children,
obey your parents in the Lord, because this is right. 2 Honor
your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a
promise, 3 so that it may go well with you and that you
may have a long life in the land.[a][b]4 Fathers, don’t stir up
anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction
of the Lord.
(CSB)
The relationship of parents with their children is like the
relationship of God with His Son Jesus. We
too have a relationship with God as our Heavenly Father through adoption when we receive Jesus as our personal savior.
The commandment to obey parents is the only one of the Ten Commandments
with a promise of longevity of life (Exodus
20:12). Eternal life is possible
through honoring God the Father by accepting Jesus as personal savior. Therefore, before we go further into this
study, I encourage anyone reading this that has not already accepted Jesus as
their personal savior, to do so now by praying with me,
Dear Lord Jesus, I know I have sinned (Romans
3:23) and know that the penalty for my sin is death (Romans
6:23). I ask you to forgive
me of my sin and cleanse me as you promise in your Word (1
John 1:9). I believe you
died, was buried, and resurrected from the dead and now declare you Lord of my
life.
Even the best parents sometimes have a child that goes
against the Godly instructions of their parents. Proverbs
22:6 states that when a child grows old or matures, they will not depart
from the teachings of the Word of God.
However, the fact that there are children who never return after
drifting from the Lord creates what could be a possible unfulfilled promise
from God. The question we will explore
in this posting is whether this is a contradiction in scripture or not.
Based upon the English translation of this verse, we
interpret this to mean that if parents raise up children in Godly principles,
when they grow old, they will not depart.
However, translators added the word should to the English translation for
it does not appear in the Hebrew text.
Therefore, the proverb is not a promise to those parents teaching
children Godly principles but a warning against not correcting children. This interpretation aligns with other scriptures
in proverbs that speak of the innate foolishness of children and the need to
correct them (Proverbs
23:13-14). Therefore, parents are in
control of the process of raising their children but the decision of whether
they follow the Lord and biblical teaching is an individual decision as it is
with everyone else. To control the
process of raising children in the ways of the Lord, parents should be a good
example by,
1)
Accepting the Lord themselves
2)
Attending a church teaching the Bible regularly
3)
Praying for and with children
4)
Studying the Bible and having family devotions
5)
Correcting children when they are wrong out of
love
Most of all we must remember that our children are watching
us whether we know it or not so be a good example. Next Wednesday’s posting will be on slaves
and masters or what we might call today, employees and employers.
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