01.17. ESSAY NO. 17

ESSAY NO. 17

Imagine the first reading of this epistle in the as­sembly of the Ephesian church. A letter from their loved and trusted apostle, who was a prisoner in far away Rome, was a memorable event. Tensely, every member listened to every line. As the reader came to the passage naming husbands and wives or parents and children or masters and slaves (likely many were slaves), how agape with interest each respective group drank in every word of its special message! Did some earnest husband speak right out: "Brother, please read that again"?

Children and Parents

Into the discussion of this theme, Paul crowds much truth that is vital to human well-being. "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother (which is the first command­ment with promise), that . . . thou mayest live long on the earth" (Ephesians 6:1-3). This passage takes for granted that Christian parents will have their children obey them as God’s representatives (think of that, par­ents) until they are old enough to obey God directly. Then, says Paul, it is right by the fundamental law of humanity and by the written law of God that chil­dren continue to obey their parents "in the Lord." "Remember the sabbath day" and, "Honor thy fa­ther and mother"—that is, remember God and par­ents—the only positive commandments in the Decalogue, are so closely allied that Leviticus 19:3 runs them together: "Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father; and ye shall keep my sabbaths." The Jew who broke either of these commandments paid with his life. The time may well come when parents no longer want their children to obey them, but Christian children, as Joseph did, will honor their parents, living and dead. Never can their parents say with King Lear: "Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend . . . How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thank­less child!" The attitude of children toward their parents is a test of their attitude toward God. Respect for age and reverence for God go together. Observe that Paul quotes with approval God’s recipe for lon­gevity, namely, the honoring of parents. Is it not well to remember, too, that China, with her oldest civili­zation on earth, has, even without the written law of God, always honored parents?

Parents and Children

"And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but nurture them in the chastening and ad­monition of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4). Men and women who are unwilling to assume "the happy tribulation of parenthood" should not marry. Prolonged willful sterility perverts God’s will as expressed in nature and in his word from the beginning. In nothing, at any time or in any place, can his flawless will be circum­vented without frustration and loss. Husbands and wives are naturally expected to become parents, and are responsible for nurturing their children.

Since only God knows the biological and social her­itage of babies, the psychological process that takes place in the soul of all growing children, and all the abysmal physical, mental, spiritual mysteries that go into the making of men, he only is able to give man­kind perfect guidance. Hence, when God offers men the family as the social institution perfectly adapted to their exceedingly intricate needs, they should pro­foundly appreciate his gracious, infallible help and use it with utmost confidence and diligence. Parents who fail to do so challenge the wisdom and the goodness of God, and perpetrate the deepest possible wrong against their children. When the family is misused, it breaks down. This verse convicts fathers who shirk their part in the family program and leave it all to mothers. The fixed responsibility of fathers in this program under Moses is continued in Christ. And because they are more likely to resort in haste to the much easier ex­pedient of crushing authority instead of prayerful instruction and prudent discipline than are mothers, fathers are warned against provoking their children to resentment. A faithful mother said she thought the reason God made mother love so strong was that mothers without it could never bear up under the stress and burden of -rearing a family. Indeed being good parents is a most difficult thing. Eli was a good high priest and David was a great king, but both were poor fathers. Mothers, think on Christ’s tender appreciation of his mother, and of his solicitous pro­vision for her, even from his cross. True mothers are "in the sight of God of great price" (1 Peter 3:4).

Master and Slaves This topic concludes Paul’s threefold discussion on "Subjection." That Christianity, which levels things and makes all men brothers, and the pagan institu­tion of slavery, which divides men into two antagonis­tic classes—masters and slaves—are mutually exclu­sive is self-evident. But as great social changes must begin with thoughts and feelings, the inevitable clash between the two does not take the form of a sudden, violent upheaval; rather, it is a powerful, quiet, inner way of life that comes from God to enlighten and change the nature of men. Christianity lights an un­quenchable time fuse among men, which must even­tually destroy all the wrongs of earth. It is the only answer for the seething race feuds, the flooding waves of crime, the stubborn struggle between capital and labor, and all the wars—in brief, the only answer for all national and international disorders around the globe. Earth’s problems are ever essentially the same, and Christianity is ever the sovereign panacea for them all. In the meantime, before the complete triumph of Christianity, to the measure that its ameliorating principles spread among men the life of individuals, institutions, and races improve. In the matter of slavery, for instance, let both master and slave but "practice the presence of God," as Paul here teaches they should, and behold the marvelous result: the labor becomes easier to the slave, pleasing to the master and slave, for God determines their treatment of each other. Christianity is not competitive but cooperative. Even leaving eternity out of considera­tion, when men reject God’s way of life in Christ for them, they in one act commit both their greatest sin and their greatest error. God’s wishes and man’s needs being identical, both are served, or neither is served. How majestically profound and sublime in its sim­plicity and infinite efficacy is Christianity! Judged by its heavenly fruits, truly it is born of God.