Healing Through Ephesians, Eph 6:1-9

Healing through Ephesians, Ephesians 6:1-9

Ephesians 6:1-9
Introduction
As we’ve studied the last few weeks, Paul is giving the Ephesians practical ways to live out the doctrine he’s written to them for the first 4 chapters of the book. Last week, Daniel preached on how the Gospel informs the relationship between husbands and wives. In the same way that Paul doesn’t allow the cultural power dynamics to remain unchanged in marriage, Paul also doesn’t allow the cultural power dynamics between children and parents and slaves and masters. In each of these sections, Paul speaks first to the weak, then to the strong and calls both to Christlike love for the other.
1-4

1. Children and parents
   1. In the context of the book, the father or grandfather of the household had absolute control over the members of the household: children, wife, slaves. The counter-cultural idea in these verses isn’t that God calls children to obey their parents. The counter-cultural idea is that God has a standard for fathers. In this culture, the standard for the head of the house was to BE the head of the house. Be the boss. Be in charge. That God would intentionally limit the power of fathers in the household is quite radical in face of this first century culture. Our culture tends to have the opposite problem. We worship youth, beauty, virility in a way that has swung to the opposite problem. Stick it to the man! Don’t trust anybody over 40! Our culture tends to shy away from calling children to obedience for many reasons, self-expression, thinking the child is better off not having boundaries. Unfortunately, that releases upon the world a group of people so selfish that they cannot love others properly. It’s a kind of cultural narcissism. But enough commentary on our culture. Suffice it to say that every culture in every epoch struggles to find the balance that Paul is calling us and children and parents to.
      
   2. This passage has been used horribly in the history of the church – from false guilt for adult children for not following their parent’s advice, to enabling child abuse. But neither issue is the thrust of the passage. Paul retools the 5th commandment from Exodus and Deuteronomy for New Testament believers and expands the application of it. Far from Paul promising long life if you obey your parents. Which you could argue for if you ignore the context of the rest of the Bible. Paul sets it up much more proverbially. And here's a point of Bible interpretation we can look at. If this is more of a proverb than a specific promise, we can square it with our experience and church history better. Generally, if when you’re a kid, you obey what righteous things your parents tell you to do, things tend to go well for you. “Don’t eat that!” “Get off the roof!” “That waffle iron is hot and will burn you if you touch it.” “Don’t hang out with kids that are going to influence you to sin more.” These are generally going to help kids mature into adults who make wise decisions, and by obeying we and our kids are practicing wisdom. <<Read Proverbs 22:6>> It certainly doesn’t mean that if we just have all the right inputs and quote Proverbs 22:6 to ourselves, that God is promising that our kids will be faithful to follow Christ, and everything will be OK. There’s still sin, you can do all the right things and your kids are still able to choose to follow their heart (which is full of sin) and rebel more against a holy God. It doesn’t mean you didn’t do enough. It’s a proverb, not a tit for tat promise.
      
   3. Remember, this section (including the section before regarding wives and husbands) is speaking to one person consistently – that is, the one person in power in the culture, the free male. So, while there is application for wives, children, and in the next section, slaves, the thrust of the passage is speaking to people in power in that culture and calling them to Christlike love for those they are in authority over. Far from the Bible simply mimicking the culture around it, it speaks against the sin in every culture, no matter the timeframe. What does it mean to not provoke your children to anger? This Greek word for anger is comparatively rare in the NT and Greek literature, but it is a cause of anger. If anger is a reaction to an injustice, then Paul is calling fathers to not be the cause for their children’s anger. There’s plenty of times my saying “no” or “do this” is a cause for my children’s anger. And quite often, I confess, it is not for righteousness, but my own selfishness. This does not preclude righteous discipline however, and walking that fine line takes wisdom and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
   4. So, if you’re a child, obey your parents. The definition of a child varies from culture to culture, but in ours it’s generally legal plus self-sufficiency. So, if you’re 26 and still playing video games in your mom’s garage and eating her food, you’re probably going to have to do what she tells you to. There are plenty of mature, ready to go 18-year-olds who can make their own wise decisions live life following Christ on their own. Great! That’s a worthy goal for each of us as parents to raise our kids with the purpose of growing up and leaving.
2. 5-9 Slaves and masters
   1. The passage has also been used horribly in the history of the church. But, just because a passage has been misinterpreted and misapplied doesn’t make the meaning of the passage any less true.
   2. First-century slavery in the Greco-Roman culture was by no means a picnic, but it wasn’t anything like race-based generational slavery practiced in the American South in the 17th through 19th centuries. In the OT law, slavery is regulated as a functional bankruptcy system in ancient Israel. There was no single race profile of a slave in either the wider Greco-Roman or Israelite worlds. Not to say that either system was without abuses. Slaves captured in war and sent to the mines in the Roman Empire had a very short, brutal life expectancy, and slavery in ancient Israel had plenty of instances of mistreatment. What we do know from history is that slavery slowly died out in the Roman Empire partly because of the influence of Christianity. If you have a religion that teaches that all humans are made in the image and likeness of God, sooner or later those bonded in servitude are going to connect the dots.
   3. What Paul calls both slaves and masters to Christlike love for each other. Christ gave up all his power and came to our world to serve and die for us. Christ is the ultimate Servant who gives up everything for his bride, the Church. God is sovereign, but does not use his power in unrighteous, unloving ways, but is always acting in love for his glory and the joy of his people. Paul commands the slave/bondservant to not just work when the master is looking – “eye-service” like “people-pleasers.” And the astonishing thing that Paul then writes is for the masters to treat them in the same way! How? By submitting their own desires for the good of their slaves because their capital M Master is the God of Heaven, and he sees all and doesn’t grade on a curve.
   4. So, how would we apply this to today’s culture? We don’t have the same system of slavery that existed in Ephesus. Do we simply write off this passage a relic of ancient literature that has no bearing upon today? I would argue that there are three applications to our modern world:
      1. Even though slavery as an institution doesn’t exist in the same way in our context, if you have power, how do you interact with those who are out of power? And I would argue that all of us in this room have varying amounts of power. Do you use that power for good? It’s not just Spiderman who can live by the maxim, “with great power comes great responsibility.” We all have power in various forms, do we use it for the good of our neighbor and the glory of God?
      2. Do you speak against those abusing their power? From the very beginning of sin in Genesis 3, part of the curse was that Adam and Eve’s struggles in their relationships was going to center around power. The man is going to push his wife down, and the wife is going to grasp power that isn’t hers.
      3. I’m convicted that each of these passages is speaking to me: I’m a husband, I’m a dad, I’m a manager at work. I have immense power over other people’s lives. I’ve got a wife who depends on me to not use my power to coerce her into sin and abuse. I’ve got 5 kids who depend on me not using my physical and verbal power to coerce them into sin and abuse. I’ve got 4 co-workers who depend on me for their livelihood. Even speaking to all of you today, I have immense power in that I’m the one talking. If I twist the Scripture that I’m preaching on for my own purposes rather than preaching what the text means, I’ve abused my power. I have immense power. You have power in your own contexts. Are we going to use that power for good as Jesus did? Or are we going to use that power for evil as the world and our sin nature would have us do?
3. Application
   1. God does not allow us to be unchanged by contact with his Word. Each one of us are either going to change and be more like Christ or be more hardened against Christ and his Word.
   2. How does this passage point us to our need for the cross? None of us loves our neighbor (children, those out of power) as we ought. We’ve all fallen short. Jesus was gently and lowly, always pursuing those on the outskirts of the culture of the day, lepers, women, children, Gentiles, tax-collectors. Jesus died for us, while we were still sinners as Romans 5:8 says. Jesus gave up the conscious exercise of his power in his incarnation. He could have stopped the crucifixion before it even began. One lash of the whip, He could have called the whole thing off and we’d all be damned. But He didn’t. He went through the sacrifice, was murdered for our sakes, and rose again for our justification.