Ephesians - Marriage and Parenting - part 2

All right, well today is part two of marriage and parenting. So the first question is, what is parenting? And you probably look at your handout and read what I have on there. So when you think of parenting, what comes to mind when you think of parenting? Is it a pleasant experience? Is it a... Slums are not teenagers. I was also thinking that in this room we have we have parents at different stages. We have parents with very young children and we have on the other end we have parents with grandchildren and I'm in between I have no grandchildren so I'm somewhere in between that so we got the A full spectrum.

Very free. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Bonnie, we greatly appreciate that. I think it affects the wise harder. Without grandchildren, it's just, I don't know what it is. It's just something like you, that's something that, you know, is very important. And then there's some people like your sister Cheryl that, you know, the Lord, you know, so we have a whole spectrum of people.

But Scripture addresses, you know, very practical areas of our lives. And this is one of them, basically. So this is actually a neat section. All right, so what I did, let's look at the definition from Webster. It's the rearing of children, their love, care, and guidance. Actually, I was surprised that love was in there, actually. Because I was thinking, I said, some people don't think, you know, I was actually encouraged by Webster. Well, Webster, hey, that's great. It's an emotional, it's emotional work.

Anyway, but when you look at scripture, there's a couple of words that kind of issue. Both Old and New Testament, they kind of pop out, and we're going to see these words kind of several times as we go through the verses in the last part of Chapter 5 of Ephesians and into Chapter 6 about teaching your children, instructing them. Those words come up over and over again, and that's what I call the lion's share of what the parenting is about. the teaching and instructing of our children. And that happens, you know, we're going to see here that it's going to talk about probably the time period when the children are under your roof. But I think there's also an aspect, which we're not going to cover a whole lot today, is when the children have left home. And that's another aspect when they come to you for counsel after they're out of the home.

But we don't have a lot of verses that really speak to that this morning. But that actually is an aspect. And actually, what we're going to see here, I just want to go through a few verses that kind of talk about teaching and instructing. In Proverbs 1, verse 8, it says, hear my son your father's instructions, and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Roger? Yes, go ahead. I have to give something else, and how about being an example? OK, OK, I think that's certainly part of it. And actually, I think that that's, we're going to kind of see that possibly.

And when it talks about honoring your parents, and I think that kind of built into that, if God has given you the parents he has, that honor is part of what the response of the child is to have to their parents. And that somewhat, it's very difficult to honor someone that isn't a Christ-like example. I mean, it makes it difficult.

Proverbs 22 verse 6, train up a child in the way that he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it. And then New Testament, actually if you go down to the bottom part here it says, it talks about earlier in the text, but then lastly it says, for your children, but you, I'm sorry, actually that goes to the previous part, for children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. So actually what that was, actually Bonnie said, hmm, does that mean I'm going to provide a 401 the rest of their lives? I'm going to finance them the rest of their lives?

I don't think so. Actually, I think the idea here, and actually other translations have it, accumulating material resources The parents are to provide for their children while they're under the roof. The children are not necessarily a labor source. Go out making money and bringing the money. I'm kind of managing my kids. Johnny's making $20,000 and Sarah's making $20,000. I'm sitting back. The parents are providing for their children.

Once they leave the home, it's a different story. all the wrong reasons. I would also say that culturally the expectation of what a parent and a child should be doing, especially when the marriage contract is coming down, has changed radically. Now we treat marriage pretty fast and loose. You get a couple hundred bucks in licenses, go to the justice, the lease, and you're done. There was a financially involved transaction historically, and we've kind of walked away from that.

Actually, an aspect that you can see as your kids mature, they can be providing income and money for you. That is a possibility, but I think this verse is more talking about don't think that they're going to be a money source. You're providing for your children when they're under your roof and when they leave, or if they want to stay and be part of your family, and if it's a family farm, that's fine. But they're not bankrolling you, basically. OK. And then the last one was 1 Timothy 3, 4.

He must be the one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. And one of the other things we're going to see as we go through here that kind of implied in a lot of this is that your children are not out of control. If they're out of control, it's going to be tough to teach them and instruct them. It's virtually impossible. They're just kind of doing their own thing and gone all the time.

Actually, what's interesting is we're also going to see that, and actually, I started going through this, we have instructions in this passage, as we're going to see here, to the father directly and actually to the children. We don't have one for the wife, but it's kind of implied in several verses. It addresses the children directly. And so one of the questions is, how's my five-year-old going to comprehend that scripture directed to him if the parents aren't involved in that and showing him the Lord Jesus and also showing him scripture and teaching him scripture? If that's not involved, he can't comprehend that commandment that comes to him. He can't understand it. He'll just say, well, what's that about? That's a book I know nothing about. So that's kind of implicit in some of these.

OK, so what I'm going to do, I'm going to start in Ephesians 5.31, and I'm going to jump to Ephesians 6.1-4.

And the reason I chose this one here is partially because it talks about this When children grow up and leave the home, there's something that happens, a transaction that happens here that's important in parenting. And to realize that your children are to establish their own home, their own family, and they become one with their wife. So I want to spend some time going through this passage here. So this is sort of what's been called the leave and cleave principle.

Actually, it's to be joined in the American Standard. So let's go back and if I can have someone read, I want to like to read in Genesis. This is where this is quoted from. Genesis chapter 2. Can I get someone to read Genesis 2, 22 through 24. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man and said, The man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. So in 24, we see basically the fact that Because of this relationship, for this cause, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

So we're going to kind of go through and look a little more at each of these words. Leave is the idea to depart from or leave behind. And actually, in some cases in scripture, there's several scripture verses I have for this, He just basically talks about that someone comes to a location, and the apostles were traveling in some of these. They come to a location, and one is left behind. One is left behind, and Paul goes on to minister someplace else. So it's just used in that context.

In this context here, it has the idea there is separation, but it's not, I want to say, that will never see each other again. And let's look at one of these verses here, because it's obvious that they're leaving him temporarily. Paul leaves some of the people he's ministering with and goes on, but it doesn't mean he'll never see them again. So I think that's important here, when there's leave and cleave, they leave for the purpose of establishing their own family and their own household, not to leave and never see each other again.

So let's look at First Thessalonians 3. I've got a question. Sure, go ahead. Who's doing the speaking here in the two verses? OK, well, let's take a look at that first, OK? OK, let's just look at it. Is that Adam? Well, OK, now we're talking about Genesis or? Genesis. OK, in Genesis. Genesis 1 through 3, right? OK. You would agree that in the Ephesians passage Paul is talking there, right? It looks like Adam is the one doing the speaking. We have Moses recording the narrative and there is a quote of Adam. That's a good point, Jack.

I had not actually thought about who it was. But verse 24, would that be the Lord God? Yeah, and that's what I'm struggling with too. At some point, like in 22, it says, And the Lord God fashioned the woman. But then 23, And the man said. Right, and I think that's where you're talking about, Jack. And the man said. My says, and Adam said. Well, okay, Adam is probably Anthropos. Yeah, okay, and that's a good Yeah, so it records, in 23, it records Adam's excitement, right?

You know, this is now bone of my bone, you know, that's actually in the Hebrew a kind of, wow, you know, this is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, you should be called woman. But then it seems like in 24 it goes back to Moses. I mean, for this cause, yeah, I don't know, that's for this cause. the mosaic narrative yeah I kind of but it does say for this cause which is the cause that she's bone of my you know a bone that she's she was taken out of me should be called woman not the English grammar matters in the translation but the end quote is is on 23.

Yeah, actually, and you're right, actually, Jack, do you have quotation marks at the end of 23? I'm not sure if the Hebrew has quotation marks. Yeah, I know. Quotation marks go from, and the man said, begin quotation marks, and of course this is the English Bible that somebody's done this with, and it ends at the end of 23. In the King James, it's not. Not in quotations, but the American Standard has quotations there. So we have it described here, as was mentioned, we have basically Adam, a response from Adam, a quote from Adam, if you will, recorded, and then we have the narrative picks back up, that started back, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and that was revealed to Moses to write this, I mean, you know. So I think that's the case. So I think it's God speaking through Moses for 24. I didn't have anyone to lead. That's true.

And also in this refreshment of that passage, are in the future tense. Most of the verbs in this passage in Ephesians are in the future tense, looking forward to when you leave. And here's what you'll do. You'll leave and cleave. You'll leave your father and your mother, future tense. In fact, that's going to be an interesting thing. I'll show you. And then you'll cleave to your wife. So the leave and cleave are looking forward to when your children leave the home. They're going to leave and cleave. And that's a future tense when they do that. OK. So Jack, did we attempt to answer your question? OK, good. Good. All right. OK, so let's look at First Thessalonians here.

This is just kind of zeroing in on the leave part, departing from or leave behind. And I guess the whole point is here, I mean these verses that I chose here basically are just to show that it's not a permanent, you're not permanently leaving your mother and father. You're leaving for a purpose, right? To start your own entity.

Brad, is that okay? I saw, I wasn't just... I set it up. Okay, alright. That's funny as a teacher. You would notice those faces. You got to get worried. Just that face on the recording for the recording. Interesting expression. OK. All right. Let's stay on track here. OK.

Let me just read 1 Thessalonians 3.1.

It says, Therefore we could endure it no longer. We thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone. And we sent Timothy, our brother, and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith. So basically I think Paul is saying here, He couldn't endure any longer. So they stopped at Athens and he sent some way ahead. So he was left behind. But it doesn't mean he never saw Timothy again. I think if I was, I'm not really good on associating. I think he saw Timothy again later on.

So this leaving behind is a is a temporary thing for a purpose, but it does indicate there is a separation that happens between the children and their mother and father. That's where I'm headed with this. The next part is the cleave part, or be joined, is the idea to cleave unto, to be joined to, and the root word is to is to glue one thing to another, which is kind of interesting. I mean, I thought you glued to your wife, you walk around like this. But that's a picture. It's a picture of the permanency of that relationship. I'm getting too... Too carried away here, okay.

In Acts 8.29, let's look at that. Can I get someone to read Acts? I'm sorry, I want to go to the one that, oh actually I didn't show you here, excuse me. I'm talking, look at my paper here. The one under Be Joined, I kind of skipped the other one.

Acts 8.29. What does that one say here? Actually, I've forgotten what that one says. Then the spirit said to Philip, go up and join this chariot. OK, right. So the idea here is, and it's not as strong.

What I had a hard time finding is, I had a hard time finding verses that, I wanted to find verses with the root word, the gluing part, but I really could not find. And I didn't, you know, you search on the computer, and after a while you kind of get tired, and you think, I can't find a word, I can't find a verse that really shows me this gluing aspect. But it is in the lexicons, it is there. But I just didn't have a good verse.

And this says, this is sort of, you know, Paul, he joined, right? Well, that's partially the, the leave and cleave out of Ephesians is probably the place to go. Exactly. For another place, it's not, it's not there. And that's exactly why I'm looking at, well, I'm not finding other verses here. Well, there are, this is, this is the, Keystone verse, if you will, for leaving and cleaving. This is where it's established. Anyway, I wanted to point out here what's interesting, which I kind of came across. The verb leave and the verb cleave are both future tense, but it's interesting that the leave is in the active voice.

You're to leave your father and mother. You would train your children. At some point, you're going to leave. I told my kids, I would like you to leave at some point." Not exactly that way. I said, it would be nice if you got a job and supported yourself. We love our kids. I mean, we love them dearly. It would be nice if you had a job and supported yourself. That would be a good thing. So it's an active thing on the... But the being joined, which is interesting is, it's in the passive voice. Boy, I said, wow. Exactly.

When God is joined together, let no man separate. The Christian marriage is a picture of Christ and the church. So that relationship, I don't say, okay, I'm going to be joined in my wife. We're going to put super glue in our hands and we're going to be joined.

No, God institutes that relationship. And then that's what comes to this wonderful word, become one flesh. And that concept of one flesh is just the oneness of that. And that's something that God has established. Marriage is God's idea, not man's idea. God has established it. He's told us about the picture that it portrays of Christ and his church.

So that's in the passive voice, which I thought was just really cool. I think that's an interesting thing. As guys, we're wired, and this is maybe a little psychological, but we're wired to conquer something and then move on. I have achieved joy It goes on. I agree with you. I can totally identify with that. My wife said, Roger, you acted a certain way before we were married, but now you've kind of changed. Well, it's like that. I think for most guys, that's a struggle. In the flesh, it's a struggle. In Christ, it can be proper.

And in Matthew 19.6 it just basically says we're no longer two but one flesh. So it kind of repeats the Genesis passage that the two have become one flesh.

And that's really so important that you're leaving for a purpose to establish a new entity, a new family unit, and you become one in that family unit. And it's something that it's God's idea, God created it, and in a sense, God is maintaining it by the spirit in you as a believer. And that kind of goes back to the fact that if it's God's idea, that's why the joining has to be passive, because he's the one that is maintaining that. Okay, so that's 531. Any other thoughts before we...

One of the things I think is kind of an interesting thing is that only Adam and Eve could have been from one flesh where God literally took out part of Adam and made that. And yet, and Adam recognizes, hey, we're one flesh, but we're called as believers even though we're biologically reproducing in a different with our spouse and not think of them as like, oh, well, you are a descendant of someone else. And so there's a separateness there. It does call us to have a single flesh mind as if our wife was drawn from our side.

It asks us to think outside the box. It does. It does. And you think, well, this is not just an ordinary relationship. This is something that's beyond. It's not like, well, I have a good friend over here. It's so, you know, at all levels, it's so much more than that. And God wants us to be more than that, you know. So it's, you know, it's neat. Okay, so let's go on to, okay.

So now we're gonna start into, in Ephesians six, we're gonna cover verses one through four. So the first one, so here we go, right off the bat, it says children. So this is addressed to children. So once again, you think, well, wait a minute, my little three year old here, He's not going to, he can't read that. So the parents, and that's my first point here, is it's addressed to children, but parents need to be involved. So without the parents being involved, the child's going to miss out on knowing what God has, what God's saying to him. You can't, without the parents being involved, and even with the parents being involved. So anyway, so that's, So obey here is a cool word. And it's this, actually I was going to ask you what obey meant, but you guys, I had it myself here.

But basically it's kind of tucked into obey is this word akuo, which is to hear in the Greek. So it's to listen under. And by implication that means to submit or to obey. But I think it's so important to kind of, in your mind when you see these passages, obey sounds so law-like. But to listen under sounds like grace. And it is grace, really. And that's the way we obey.

We don't obey by a set of rules. We obey by listening and saying, well, wow, that's what God wants from me. Why wouldn't I do that? Why wouldn't I want to do that? The logical imperative idea. OK. So actually let me just do these three here. Oops, I didn't actually want to tie it to that one. We'll just stay on the obey part here for right now.

So I looked through and there's obeying or listening under. It's talked about, and I know this is only a shortened list, but in obedience to God, and actually I'll just read some of these. In Hebrew it talks about, Hebrews 5 and 9, it talks about He became to all those who obey or listen under the source of eternal life, speaking about the Lord Jesus. So listening to God, we understand that he is the source of eternal life.

And then it talks about, in terms of the gospel, it talks about, actually that one I'm going to have to, let's just look at that one, Romans 10.16.

But not all the Israelites accepted the good news, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message? Right, right. OK. Actually, that word, you have accepted us, it says, however, they did not all, you have accepted. Actually, so I have heed in my Bible. Does somebody else have a different? I have obeyed. Yeah. And actually, it's the same word here.

It's to listen under, again. So it's actually, they did not, Listen under the glad tidings of the gospel. So there's a case for this word issues in terms of listening under the gospel and then here's in Colossians, this is this is sort of almost a parallel verse Colossians chapter 3 It's only 320 for me Children obey your parents and all things for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. Okay, so a very similar very similar message here and And it's the same word, to listen under.

OK. So the last part of this kind of gives some motivation, if you will. It says, for this is right. And the this kind of points back to obey. You could say, for this listening under is right. And actually, the word right is this word from dyke, which is the core word. And it's the idea, it's actually, could be translated as righteous, righteous conduct, or right conduct. So listening under is right. It makes sense, it's righteous, it's God's standard. Listening under, obeying your parents, is the godly thing to do. And you do that by, and it has to be done by, you know, it's done by faith. And actually, or this is a righteous thing. OK, so that's 6.1. So questions will move on to 6.2.

So 6.2, actually 2 and 3 kind of go together, because we're going to find out the promises. But in 6.2, this refers back to the Old Testament again, actually to the Ten Commandments. So back in Exodus 12, it basically It's the fifth commandment, I believe. So let's just look at Exodus 12 for a second. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Did I say the wrong thing? I've got Exodus 20. Thank you so much. Thank you. Exodus 20. Exodus 20 is basically, you start off in verse 3.

And there's the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before you. And then four is you shall not make for yourself an idol. And you come down and there's verse seven. We shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. That's three. Four is remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And then five is verse 12. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

And actually what was pointed out, I was looking at one comment pointing out that this is the only commandment that has a positive result. The rest of them are negative. You shall not this, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery. They're all negative. This is a positive. If you do this, good things will happen. This will be pleasing to the Lord.

The flip side of that is that there were places in the law that if your kid got out of hand too far, they would be taken care of. I know, I know. I think if you're going to offer them life, listen, don't get too far out of hand because we can't help that. Right. That's good. With our modern psychology today, that's, you know, even spankings are considered pretty ridiculous. I know. We won't let them know that historically death was an option. That's good. Okay. All right. Okay.

So basically, this verse is a repeat of a commandment that was given under law. So now we come over and now we're under grace. And that's the interesting part. You look through this and you say, well, OK, how am I going to do this under grace? And it takes, I mean, I think it's obvious. The Christian life is only lived one way, by faith. So obviously, you're not keeping a set of rules, but God is using a commandment, and actually this is a commandment. This is an imperative mood. But we're still under grace. We haven't gone back under law. I'll go back under law for my children, and I'll be under grace for the rest of my life. The kids might think it's that way sometimes. I think this actually has a lot of implications for parents, and maybe we're going to get to that. Are you going to get to that, or should I stop you? Go ahead, man. I'll stop you if you go too far.

The thing is, as a parent, if I take misunderstanding of grace and say well that must mean I don't discipline my kid or I don't exact don't you know I won't punish the child that's not gracious then they don't learn this exactly exactly so it does it does involve parental exactly what and we're going to see that actually in the words here that they're used for the promise because it's going to talk about it's going to give us some that it may go well with you and live long in the earth.

And then we're going to see later on, we get to the fathers. It talks about the discipline and instruction. So there is definitely, you just don't say, go out and have a good time and I'll check in with you later. It's not that way at all. You're training and nurturing your children. That was a quote from honors to esteem and reverence. As we see it in these verses here and I was just trying to think. In John 5, 22 and 23 it talks about honoring He who honors a son honors a father.

And then it goes on here in 1 Timothy 5.3, it talks about honoring widows. And then here's the one that, boy, in this day and age is a tough pill to swallow sometimes. 1 Peter, let's read this one.

1 Peter 2.17. Honor is a characteristic that God has in his creation, that we honor people.

1 Peter 2.17. Can I get someone to read that for me, please? Honor all the people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. Right. So if you notice in there, honor the king, and at the beginning it said honor all. So honor is a pretty important concept to learn from God's perspective. We're to honor people, we're to esteem them, to reverence them. And some of the ones are saying, well, what if the king is not a good king? There are some bad kings out there. How about the terrorists? I know, I know. I understand what you're saying. There are some difficult things there.

But God has, especially in terms of your parents, and I was thinking about it this way. We did not choose our parents. So that's something that God chose our parents, right? So why wouldn't we, by honoring them, we're honoring him. We're honoring him that we have that life that came through our parents. So I mean, for that relationship, maybe you have parents that are not good parents. They're evil parents, or they do bad things. So there are some tough things there. the practicality of people that do bad things. But I think what's in place is that we recognize what God has done through our parents and we honor, we're actually honoring God in all these. By honoring the king, we're honoring God because the king is in the hands of God.

So it all goes back to honoring God, it seems like to me. And that's what makes any sense out of all this. Otherwise, you think, I can't honor that person. I know. Well, the other side of it is that God is just. And there is an element of justice that's part of the text that assumes that justice is taking place. I think that's an important thing.

We can think of edge cases for all kinds things, and one of them, you know, the abuse of parents, or whatever else. But I think, you know, the authors are writing to believers, thinking about it from a believing context, and not so much from a five-year-old with an alcoholic dad or something. So I think we probably want to be careful not to go too far into those and say, oh, you should just sit and deal with the meetings, because that's just honoring his parents. No, I agree with you.

I think the fact is seeing the honor comes from God. It's sources in God. And so we're actually honoring him by honoring the people that are over us. When we have a boss or a king or our parents, we honor them because God has established that relationship.

Otherwise, you know. Okay, so now we kind of go, so basically, because this passage talks about, it talks about what it talked about under the law. It says that there's a promise involved with this. by honoring your father and mother. And we're going to look at those aspects. So it signifies a gift graciously bestowed by God. I think there's maybe one exception in the New Testament. I didn't look at all of them. I just read what it said. It said there's one exception, but almost always it promises God is the source of the promises in Scripture, not man.

And in the first John passage, Let's just look at that verse. 1 John chapter 2 and verse 25. It says, and this is a promise which he himself made to us, eternal life. Promises like that, only God can make promises like that. OK, so what we're going to see, I'll just skip the other one for right now. We're going to see that the next chart is going to talk about these promises. That's verse 3 here. So that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth. So there's two parts to this promise. The first part is that it may be well with you. And that's actually the idea of Actually, I got made a little bit carried away here.

I started looking at the Greek verbs here. And there are a couple of Greek verbs. This is the verb genomai. And it's a to be verb, to become. It's a verb of change. And I don't know why, actually, I didn't come to any great conclusions after I looked at them. I said, why did I put that down almost? But anyway, that's a verb here, maybe. And actually, well is the idea of good. In Matthew 25, actually, I have a better verse than that. Why don't you pencil in if you want to.

Let's look at Acts 15.29. It's a better verse.

Acts 15.29. We'll look at that.

Acts 15.29. And that says, it says, that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from the blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication.

If you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. So it's the idea of doing well. It's a good thing. It's a good thing if you don't get involved with idols and blood. This is talking about, this is the time period of things sacrificed to idols. And they say that's a good thing. That's the context here. It's a good thing that you honor your father and your mother. Okay, so the next part is that you may live long on the earth. And this is another to be verb. And this is the idea of long life. It's an adjective of long duration or long lived.

And actually, if you look back under the law there, and these are verses out of the Old Testament, that talks about the blessings and the curses. That's the law picture. If you do this, I'll bless you. If you do that, I won't bless you. You'll live long if you obey my commandments. I was kind of reading through different things, looking at what people thought about this. It says you will have long life. Some of your children may have short lives.

So you think, well, Lord, I didn't answer you. So once again, here's another one where you looked, and God says, OK, that you may live long. And it's not, I don't know. God has said it, and we believe it. But it's not a guarantee. There'll be no trials, and your kids will be healthy and live to 100, Brad.

Is it possible that he's just saying, drawing out the peculiar nature of this commandment? Like, he's not saying that the promise applies to us. promise that you're not under, because once again, you're not under law. But I'd like to, as Paul, who, right, is very, very, very well versed in the law, he's going, hey, I can go back and show you why this is such a special part, even though we don't live under this law system that guarantees this and this and that. I mean, to me, I guess I've just always read it and found it easy that he's going back to the law because he's not I'm sorry, because I've always wondered if he's not going back to the law except to try out the peculiar nature of it and say, hey, God cares especially about this. You're looking at more that as believers in Lord Jesus, we have a special relationship and therefore that's unique. Is that what you're kind of saying? that he's dipping back into the law and pulling this commandment out.

We're at it other times, right? In Romans 7, he pulls out, thou shalt not covet from the ten. This is proof that we're not under the law and all this stuff. So the way I've always reconciled this is he's not saying, you know, that you're under this commandment, but he's rather pulling it out saying, hey, this is specifically and uniquely highlighted in the Ten Commandments as being the first one with a promise, and I'll tell you what that promise is, but only so that you know that God that we may not serve under grace, that children would honor their parents, but not at all a guarantee that that we will be recipients of your promise.

Right, right. Well, you know, and then the flip side of the coin, you can find plenty of verses that says, as a believer, we're going to have tribulation, we're going to have trials, we're going to have distress. So you can, you have this verse that says, you honor your parents and you're going to live long. You have another verse that says, I'm going to have trials and tribulations. And so you say, well, so that's one of those things.

I don't know. I didn't, after looking at this and what I looked at, the more I thought, And that's one possibility about what Brad said. I don't know. Essentially it says, you may live long on the earth. So I don't know. It's interesting. I don't have a good answer for it. I mean, I have to think about it a little bit more.

But it is interesting that here's a promise that is brought over under grace. And so how do we see that? Is everything good in our life and we live to be a hundred? But that doesn't match up with the fact that we're going to have trials and tribulations and that will honor God very much as this honors God living long. Doesn't it also have the nature of a proverb?

I mean, it kind of has that nature, especially brought over into grace. Hey, you know, I know that when I've listened to my parents, things have gone well to me. Right. And there's some very practical sense in that. If you are listening to your parents, the collective wisdom of that, God already says that that's going to be a good thing.

So I have less problem with it going well than with the fact I get a free ticket to 100 years old. I punch my card. Also, I mean, just kind of the other side of that, when you're a welfare, you're saying your parents told you not to drive a car while using certain substances. It could very quickly preclude that you don't live a long life by disobeying them.

Exactly. I mean, my parents, most of the things they told me, and I know this now as a parent, is so that they do not die. Don't run into the street, not because I want to, you know, hurt you or restrict you from fun, but because the cars are in the street. So that you do not die, so that you might get a chance to live a little bit longer.

I don't know. Anyway. Well, I found I wasn't going to answer this question probably today. I'd be happy to talk with you later. We'll talk about it more. It's an interesting one. This is what I think is actually a good exercise in the fact that you think about, okay, God does, and he brings many of the commandments over under grace, and I think it's a good thing to look at them and understand how we're to live that by grace. I want to quickly go on here to this last one here. I left it for last, but it's actually just a dynamite part of this whole thing. This is what I call the father's do's and don't list.

It says, fathers do not provoke your children to anger. That's the idea to arouse for wrath, irritation, and resentment. We're not to be goading them, irritating them. In the Colossians verse there, it says, fathers do not exasperate your children, that they may not lose heart. And that's actually almost a synonym. It's not exactly the same word in the Greek in Colossians 321, but it's a very close synonym of that. So we're not to be goading them to anger.

What we are supposed to do are the next two things. We're supposed to be bringing them up, or actually the general category of bringing them up, nurturing them, rearing them. And we're to do that in two aspects, in discipline, and this is this PADIA, which is idea of child training, and includes instruction, we're to be instructing them. And just trying to think if I had, let's go on to that, okay. I think that's basically it right there. So basically, the two aspects, there's discipline and instruction.

And under instruction, this involves reproof, possibly, encouragement. And it's a putting in mind. And let's look at the 1 Corinthians 10, 11 here for a second. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 11. First Corinthians 10 verse 11 says, Now these things have happened to them as an example that they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

So basically, I kind of thought this putting in mind was really kind of cool. As we instruct them, part of that is putting God's Word in their minds. That's going to be one of the most valuable instructions we can do for them. Putting God's Word in their minds. And that's going to produce the results that God has for his scriptures. So the instruction part, boy, I see that God's Word is intimately involved in that, that we're instructing them in what is right, what is honoring to God.

But there is discipline involved in that. It's not just a wild... No, it's orderly. We're training them consistently. Consistency is part of this too, and in love. So discipline and instruction, like we started at the very beginning, those are kind of key words in what a godly home is all about and what parenting is all about. Any last thoughts on?

Discipline is one of those things that is always difficult as a parent for me because I don't want to overreact. I don't want to be walking in the flesh with that discipline. But the instruction part actually takes probably just as much thought the ways is you have to kind of pick your, what's the best way for me to tell the seven-year-old is certainly not the same way for me to tell the four-year-old in my house. Their understanding is different. The way that they learn and think is different. And that as a parent is a cool challenge that I enjoy, I guess. It's just simply like, hey, I have to know my kid for my kid to know. Exactly. Right. Right.

And that's going back to provoking them. In some cases, it can be totally different. You can provoke one child very easily by just maybe a careless word. And you don't want to do that. You want to show them, this is not right. This is like, don't go out in the street. Bad things will happen if you go out in the street. And because you've repeated to do that, I'm probably going to have to punish you for doing that. There's going to be consequences for that. If you continue down that path, there are consequences. And a lot of times you can use scripture along that line. There are so many examples of that. Israel is a great example. I can remember as a kid, we'd read through the accounts of Israel.

Dad, how come all those kings They were always getting, they did this and then they got bad. There were so few good kings. How come there weren't more good kings? I said, well, there were just a lot back in it. But we have to learn from that. When you do things that are right, and this is made back to the, good things will happen. You do right, there'll be consequences of right that will be advantageous to you. If you do wrong things, there'll be consequences for the wrong actions.

Actually, the first Timothy 3.16 is about God's word again. So God's word is involved both in the discipline and in the instruction. It's really cool. I found this is really kind of a neat section in scripture.

So actually next week, I think Bob's just going to kind of wrap it up. This is the last class and I've actually forgotten. I think it's just, what's he going to do here? You should know this. It might just be a summary. I had a note here, but I lost it or whatever. We'll start in January in Galatians. Bob's making up the schedule, so he offered to do the first class. I encouraged him. I said, Bob, you're making the schedule up. You're going to have to do the first class.

He talked with Brad about, are you going to be up north here? Okay, alright. Sorry, we're going to miss you. But not the smell. What are you going to be doing up north? I'll just be teaching at Fort Collins Bible Church. Eventually, as soon as the house sells. I hope that goes on the internet. Okay, we better close it. We better pray now. Time is moving on here. We'll definitely pray for Brad here.

We thank you, Father. We thank you for the class today, Lord. We thank you for your word and how it shows us such practical areas. Lord, as parents, it pushes us many times to be on what we are able to handle, and that's actually a good thing that we rely upon you for every aspect of our parenting. and every part of our lives that we walk by faith in what you told us in your word. We pray for our brother Brad just as he starts a new phase here of his life and we pray just for your blessing upon that and pray that it would accomplish the purpose that you have in mind. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.