Tuesday, May 7th, 2024

Scripture: Col. 3:20 Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. Col. 3:21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.

Teaching: Following instructions to husbands and wives, Paul issues similar instruction for how children and fathers should worship and glorify Christ in their own circumstances. Children show their faith in Christ by obeying their parents. In Paul’s time, children were under the complete authority of their fathers, but the difference here that Paul stresses is for a child’s duty to obey his parents to become obedience in the Lord. With Christ’s obedience to the Father as the model, children are to, likewise, obey their earthly fathers because of their obedience to their heavenly father.

Fathers, and not mothers, are addressed here because they held the authority over children even into their children’s adulthood. How fathers assumed and enforced obedience varied, and still does to this day. Paul’s goal in this instruction is for fathers to lead their children to Christ so Paul urges fathers to act in a character that is Christ-like. It upholds justice, punishing in accordance with disobedience, but in love, grace, seeking opportunities for repentance and mercy.

Takeaway: We learn how we should obey and how we should lead by first knowing Christ and secondly, studying how He obeyed and led. Jesus obeyed the Father in all things, going to the cross because it was the Father’s will. Jesus led in grace, truth, and mercy but not without the expectation of obedience. Paul’s instructions to children and fathers are for the purpose of living in Christ, following in His ways rather than our own, and honoring Him in the circumstances of ones life, in this case, as a child or as a father.