SERIES: Christ is the Answer
Renewing Our Passion for Family
SCRIPTURE: Colossians 3:18-21
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: Our brief but profound text for today is found in Colossians 3:18-21:
Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.
Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.
Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.
Bible scholar Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has stated, “The failure to understand and implement the truth of these verses is the cause of most of the problems in the world today.” [i] As startling as that statement is, I think it is not an overstatement. If I thought there were anyone here today who would dispute the sad state of the American family, I would take the time to cite some of the alarming statistics on unmarried mothers, divorce, single-parent homes, children abandoned to daycare centers, crack babies, child abuse, juvenile crime, etc. But we don’t need to be convinced; what we need is to hear a word from the Lord about answers and solutions.
The past few weeks we have been focusing our attention on the well-dressed Christian, i.e., the person who has replaced the vices of his pre-Christian lifestyle with the virtues of a godly life. I think it is not accidental that the first subject Paul addresses after this is the family. Sometimes we have the notion that home is where we can let our hair down and act our normal rotten selves. Not. So important is this subject that I have asked the two older sections of Children’s Church to join us for worship today. It’s not often that children are specifically addressed in the Scripture, but today they are, and I think they need to to hear what is said.
A word to Christian wives: “submit”
“Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” Needless to say, this command is not the most popular one in the Bible. Secularists scoff at it, most religious scholars are embarrassed about it, and even many evangelicals are becoming interpretive contortionists in an attempt to get around the implications of it, but I suggest to you that, popular or not, submission is God’s will for a Christian wife, and one cannot break this command without being broken by it. At the same time, however, it is also important to point out that there is a lot of misunderstanding as to what submission means. So, I would like to start with …
The explanation of submission. Submission can perhaps best be defined simply as “accepting one’s proper rank or place in a line of authority.” In the home God has assigned the husband the responsibility of being the head and the wife is to recognize that authority. However, several important facts about submission should be recognized up front.
First, this command is not addressed to the husband but to the wife. In other words, Paul does not say, “Men, make your wives submit.” Instead, it speaks to the wife, and the mood and tense of the verb implies that she is to respond freely rather than from compulsion. In other words, “choose to submit yourself to your husband.”
Secondly, the submission urged is not of women to men but of wives to husbands. There is nothing in the Bible that limits the role of women in business, in education, in government, or in any other field. But in the home, she is to recognize the authority of her husband.
What does this mean practically? Does it mean that the wife is to comply with all the husband’s wishes (as one man suggested this week in a premarital counseling session I conducted!)? Does it mean that the wife is to leave all the decisions to the husband? Does it mean that the wife is inferior? The answer is “no” to all three.
I think a helpful way to describe the husband’s authority in the home is to employ the analogy of a major corporation. Who is the head of any corporation? It’s usually the CEO, the Chief Executive Officer, or the Chairman of the Board. There isn’t a company anywhere that has two Chairmen of the Board or two CEO’s, because the buck has to stop at someone’s desk. Is the CEO superior to the other officers and employees in a corporation? No. Does he get everything he wants? Not in a healthy organization. Does he make all the decisions? Of course not. Probably Lee Iacocca makes fewer than 1/1000 of 1% of all the decisions at Chrysler Corporation. Undoubtedly the COO, the Chief Operating Officer, makes far more decisions than he does, and the middle managers make even more. But when an issue has been discussed and debated by everyone involved, and no consensus emerges, then Iacocca has the responsibility to make the decision.
Well, in a Christian home God has appointed the husband as the CEO (and frankly, I like to think of the wife as the COO). That doesn’t mean he is superior, or that all his wishes should be met, or that he should make all the decisions. In fact, in most solid homes the husband and wife will make most decisions together. Some entire areas the husband may delegate to his wife and some perhaps even to the children. But if, after discussion and debate, there is disagreement on a matter, and if a decision must be made, the husband is given the responsibility by God to make that decision and the wife is to submit her will to his.
The motivation for submission is also stated in verse 18: “it is fitting in the Lord.” It is appropriate. It is best for everyone involved. Since God knows us better than we know ourselves, and since He wants His children to be happy and fulfilled, we are compelled, it seems to me, to accept His revealed will in this matter. It follows, of course, that wives are not called to follow submission into sin or irrationality or personal harm. There’s a far-reaching biblical principle that comes into play here: “We must obey God rather than men.” But wives who recognize their husband’s authority in the home, even when it’s difficult or inconvenient, do themselves, as well as their families, a great favor.
Some common objections to submission that we hear today:
NT teaching on wives’ submission is culture-specific. In other words, some suggest that just as Paul demanded that women wear a veil when worshiping at Corinth, which was fitting in that culture but not necessarily in ours, so the expectation for wives to be submissive to their husbands was fine in the first century but doesn’t suit modern notions of the women’s role.
Such a conclusion has several major difficulties. First, nothing in the passage itself suggests even remotely that this was a temporary command for a specific situation. Secondly, such an argument could be used to dispense with almost any ethical position the NT takes; in fact, that is exactly what is happening in the liberal church in regard to abortion and gay rights. Thirdly, Paul grounded the issue of authority in Creation itself to show the timelessness of his instructions.
Fourthly, the expectation of submission by the wives to their husbands is parallel in our passage to the expectation of obedience by the children to their parents (not the same, but parallel), and the command for children to obey their parents comes right out of the Ten Commandments. Are they culture-specific too? The point is that this order of relationships appears to be a universally applicable Christian distinctive.
Paul was biased against women. This is an absurd statement that could only gain favor in a society that has gone to seed on personal rights. The fact of the matter is Christianity in general, and Paul in particular, was a great liberator of women. During the height of Desert Storm, we were treated to many glimpses into the plight of women in the Middle East. In some countries women are not only required to cover their faces completely when in public, but they are also deprived of a college education, denied the privilege of driving a car, and forbidden to work outside the home—no matter whether they have children or not. Now that’s in the 20th century!
A stunning article appeared in the St. Louis Post Dispatch last week describing the way in which millions of women all over the world are subjected to surgical procedures that are not needed but are merely for the convenience of men. The article described how even in the United States hundreds of thousands of women have been brainwashed into cosmetic surgery because of some false image of the ideal woman perpetrated by a sick male-dominated society.
Friends, things were even worse for women in the 1st century. Listen to William Barclay’s description of the plight of women in the ancient world:
“Under Jewish law a woman was a thing; she was the possession of her husband, just as much as his house or his flocks or his material goods were. She had no legal right whatever. For instance, under Jewish law, a husband could divorce his wife for any cause, while a wife had no rights whatever in the initiation of divorce. In Greek society a respectable woman lived a life of entire seclusion. She never appeared on the streets alone, not even to go marketing. She lived in the women’s apartments and did not join her menfolk even for meals. From her there was demanded a complete servitude and chastity; but her husband could go out as much as he chose and could enter into as many relationships outside marriage as he liked and incur no stigma. Both under Jewish and under Greek laws and custom, all the privileges belonged to the husband, and all the duties to the wife.” [ii]
Into that morass the Apostle Paul followed Jesus Christ in elevating the dignity of women, establishing their equality in the church, demanding that husbands treat them as fellow heirs of the gift of life, affirming their ministry gifts, and basically freeing them from the horrible oppression that was theirs in virtually every area of civilization. The mere fact that he addressed wives equally with their husbands here in this passage was revolutionary.
Never was anyone further ahead of his time than Paul in his attitude toward women. In fact, the very reason he had to address wives on this matter of submission is that his liberating teaching was so successful that some were prone to take their new freedom a step too far by throwing out the divine order for the home along with the oppression of pagan society.
Submission entails inferiority. Let me ask you, is Jesus Christ inferior to God the Father? Of course not, but He is in submission to His Father (1 Cor. 15:28). If this term (“submission”) can be used to describe the One who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, then it obviously has nothing to do with a lack of personal worth and value. All through our society we recognize equality of personhood while recognizing distinctions in authority. Why not in the home?
Some husbands don’t deserve submission. I grant that entirely. But that doesn’t change the fact that God requires it. Some of your bosses at work and some of your teachers at school don’t deserve your respect either, but if you’re wise, you will respect their position if not their person. That’s why the motive Paul offers is so important: it must be done because it is fitting in the Lord, not because it’s deserved.
Some wives are better leaders than their husbands. Again, I have no dispute with this observation. But when that’s the case, the wise husband will encourage her to use her gifts of leadership, while not abdicating his position as the head of the home. If he refuses, she may have to seek ways to exercise her leadership gifts outside the home.
Quickly, we must move to the husbands, because there is a clear connection between God’s word to the wives and His word to the husbands.
A word to Christian husbands: “love”
“Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.” An early church theologian spotted the close connection between submission and love when he asked the men of his day:
“Hast thou seen the measure of obedience?
hear also the measure of love.
Wouldst thou that thy wife should obey thee as the Church doth Christ?
Have care thyself for her, as Christ for the Church.”
In other words, a husband’s loving, caring, sacrificial approach to his wife’s well-being makes her responsibility of submission much easier. Let’s begin by discussing …
The meaning of love. It should be obvious that this command has nothing directly to do with emotions. Paul is not saying, “I command you husbands to tingle up and down your spines when you see your wives.” That would be ridiculous (I mean … scratch that!). Emotions are not something that are subject to commands. The kind of love Col. 3:19 is addressing is a matter of the will, and the word he uses is agape. He had other words available to him which describe sensual love and deep friendship, but he ignored those words and chose agape. This kind of love is best defined as “love that acts for the best good and promotes the well-being of the other person, demanding nothing in return.” It is the opposite of selfishness.
In a parallel passage in Eph. 5 Paul further explains this command to husbands by offering …
Two powerful examples of love (Eph. 5)
Christ’s love for the Church. Christ never seeks His own benefit; He never loves the Church for what He can get out of her; He is not the dictator of the Church; He is not the oppressor of the Church; He is the head of the Church. The Church looks to Him for protection, for direction, and for encouragement. Furthermore, His love for the church is a sacrificial love: “He gave himself for her.” When a man gets married he sacrifices his independence; he sacrifices his right to live selfishly; he sacrifices his control over his time. If called upon to do so, he would give his very life for her.
Still further, Christ’s love for the Church causes Him to honor the Church: “He gave himself up for her to make her holy, or to set her apart.” When a man accepts the responsibility of marriage, he not only sacrifices his selfish independence, but he also sets his wife apart from all other women, or if you prefer, sets her upon a pedestal. He does not use her or abuse her or ridicule her or criticize her in public. Instead, he protects her and honors her. The second example of love used in Eph. 5 is …
Self-love: “Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it.” Often the concept of self-love in Scripture is portrayed negatively, but not always. There is something wrong with doting on oneself with pride and selfishness, but there is nothing wrong with a proper and healthy self-appreciation. Jesus Himself said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If it weren’t proper to love yourself, then it wouldn’t be proper either to love your neighbor.
Paul’s point is that almost everyone gives extraordinary care and concern to his own body. Men, when you get hungry, what do you do? Do you say, “My stomach is growling, but let it growl. It’s always asking for something. If it were earning the money, like my hands and brains are doing, then it might have reason to complain.” No, none of us has ever said such a thing. When you get tired what do you do? Do you say, “This bod is so lazy, I can’t believe it. There’s so much work that needs to be done. I can’t see that it has done anything significant all day. All it ever does is watch TV and eat.” When you need a haircut, do you begrudge the fact that you just got one last month?
Can you see Paul’s point? We are to love our wives as we love ourselves, because, as a matter of fact, we are one flesh with our wives.[iii]
Before leaving the instruction for husbands, it’s important to note that
The unacceptable alternative to love is getting bitter. Apparently even in the first century it was a fairly common problem for husbands to get cross with their wives. Sometimes it may be because the husband doesn’t understand the wife’s mood swings; sometimes he may not understand her thought processes; sometimes he may feel that he doesn’t get the same kind of respect at home that he gets at work. But whatever the case, bitterness and resentment are unacceptable. A tone of voice that might be completely overlooked at the office, may bring instant tears at home.
A word to Christian children: “obey”
Children, this is the only commandment given just to children in the Bible, so listen carefully: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” I believe this commandment is directed at every unmarried child who lives in his or her parents’ home and/or is dependent upon his parents for the basic necessities of life. We hear a lot about children’s rights today, and they do have rights. They have the right to be born and they have the right to be nurtured by loving parents, as we’ll see in the next verse. But children also have responsibilities, the first and foremost of which is to obey.
The extent of the requirement for obedience. It applies to all children and it applies to “everything.” Pastor Mike, do you mean I have to obey when my parents tell me to be home at a certain time, take a bath, go to bed, clean my room, do my homework, turn the TV off, quit pestering my sister, and eat my brussels sprouts? Well, I don’t know about the Brussels sprouts; that may be child abuse. Yes, even when they tell you to eat your vegetables. The only exception is if your parents told you to do something that God forbids.
Not only are children to obey in everything, but they are to obey both father and mother. Children have no more right to play favorites with their parents than do parents with their children. It’s wrong when children take advantage of their mother when father is out of town or unavailable.
Well, where did Paul ever get such an idea that children should obey?
The origin of the requirement for obedience (Ex. 20:12) He got it from the Ten Commandments. In Ex. 20:12 God Himself wrote with His own finger on a tablet of stone these words: “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” This commandment is 3,500 years old. It’s the same commandment that little Samuel was required to obey, and David, and Daniel, and Jesus Himself. Now “honor” means even more than “obey.” It is possible to obey while complaining or pouting, but it’s not possible to honor your parents that way.
I heard about a little boy whose mother told him to sit in the time-out chair. He did, but he said to her, “I may be sitting down on the outside but I’m standing up on the inside.” That boy was being obedient, but he was not honoring his mother.
And why should children obey their parents? I want to show you four reasons straight out of the Bible.
Four motives for obedience (20, Eph. 6:1-3)
1. It pleases the Lord. Verse 20 says, “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” Most children I know want to please God. The most important way in the world to do that is not to witness at school or attend every youth activity but to simply obey your parents.
2. It is right. That’s what Eph. 6:1 says. It’s right, it’s appropriate. After all, you owe your existence to your parents, or, if adopted, you were specially chosen by your parents. No one loves you more than your parents. Furthermore, your parents are older, more experienced, and wiser than you are, even though you may not always think so. Someone has said there are 3 stages in a man’s life:
1. “My dad can whip your dad.”
2. “Oh Dad, you don’t know anything.”
3. “As my father used to say.”
3. It will make your life more pleasant. Children, do you want your life to go more smoothly, to have fewer problems, less discipline, more friends, better grades, a better job, and a happier marriage when you grow up? Sure you do. Then obey your parents now. That’s what the Bible says. God isn’t promising that you won’t have any problems or disappointments if you obey, but at the very least He promises that you will be better off if you obey your parents than if you don’t. And let me ask you one more question: “Do you want to live a long life? How about to 80 or 90 or even 100 years?” Well, if you obey your parents …
4. It will help you live longer. When people reach a ripe old age they are often asked, “to what do you attribute your longevity?” Some say it’s because they never drank alcohol; others because they did chew tobacco; still others because they worked hard. My grandfather claimed that he lived into his 90’s because he ate lots of radishes and Limburger cheese and rarely took baths (and when he did, he never used soap). That actually may be true, because people keep their distance from people who don’t take baths, and therefore germs don’t have a chance to pass.
But I’ve never heard anyone give the one biblical reason why some people live longer than others—obedience to their parents. Obviously, this is a general promise rather than an iron-clad guarantee. All other things being equal, an obedient child will live longer than a disobedient one. Every police officer and every prison guard will tell you that there is a direct relation between rebelliousness at home and crime on the streets. How many children who began with petty disobedience in the home graduated to full-fledged delinquency and finally lost their lives on a drug overdose or in the commission of a crime. If you want to live long, start by obeying your parents.
Finally, this morning, we find …
A word to Christian parents: “encourage.”
Here’s what verse 21 actually says, “Father, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” The word for fathers sometimes refers to fathers and mothers, but perhaps special attention is being directed to fathers because they tend to expect more of their children (especially their sons) and they tend to fail more frequently at this matter of encouragement.
What they must not do is to embitter their children. Ephesians says not to exasperate them. In both cases the verbs are present imperatives: “Do not make a habit of doing this.” Now I know there are some of you who don’t quite understand this command not to exasperate your children. It would make more sense to you if Paul had put it the other way around, “Children, don’t exasperate your parents.” In fact, one man asserted with a good bit of dogmatism “that the only reason children are so happy is that they don’t have any children of their own to drive them nuts.” But Paul isn’t addressing the problem of parents coping with children here. Instead, he’s concerned about parents exasperating their children!
This shouldn’t be interpreted as implying that a parent should withhold discipline from a child, even though the probability may be fairly high that the child will resent it and perhaps even get angry over it. What he is arguing against is the abuse of parental authority. This can happen through nagging, inconsistent or delayed discipline, overprotection, favoritism, discouragement, ridicule, neglect, physical cruelty, bitter words, and unreasonable demands. And those are just a few of the ways a parent can embitter or exasperate a child.
Now this, too, is an amazing new viewpoint that Paul has injected into pagan society, for under Roman law the father could do anything he wanted with his children. He could sell them, turn them into slaves, even take their lives. But the Bible forbids fathers from even making their children bitter.
Why they must not do it (i.e., embitter their children). Because, Paul says, “they will become discouraged.” In my own counseling I have found a number of adults whose emotional problems can be traced directly to the fact that their parents, especially their fathers, caused them to lose heart. People have said, “I never got anything but put-downs from my parents” or “I can’t ever remember my father complimenting me about anything.”
John Newton, the great preacher and writer of the hymn, “Amazing Grace,” who experienced such a wretched life before turning to Christ, said, “I know that my father loved me—but he did not seem to wish me to see it.” Friends, when a child doesn’t get ego-strength at home, he will seek it elsewhere—often in the wrong places. Thirdly, what must parents do?
What they must do (Eph. 6:4). It’s never enough to simply avoid doing wrong things. In Eph. 6:4 the positive side of parenting is stressed: “instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Training refers to discipline, and instruction refers to spiritual truth. We don’t have time this morning to expand on these responsibilities of parents except to note that the ultimate responsibility for these activities resides with the parents, especially the fathers. S. S. teachers can help; the Youth Pastor can be a great asset; camp and scouting and VBS and AWANA and grandparents can all serve to make the job easier, but the ultimate responsibility belongs to the parents to make sure the child is brought up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Conclusion: As we close this morning, I would like for us to do a responsive reading together that is entitled, “A Celebration for Family People,” written by Bryan Jeffery Leech and found in the back of our hymnal.
LEADER: God has called us to live within the privilege of family life.
He has gifted us with mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers aunts and uncles, and grandparents, and beyond this with friends who become equally precious to us.
PEOPLE: PRAISE GOD FOR THE GIFT OF FAMILY LIFE!
LEADER: Lord, we thank you for older folk who link us with the past and who
enrich us with their experience.
We thank you for the newborn so rich in potential greatness and goodness.
We thank you for the gifts we see emerging in our children.
We thank you for the excitement of living with those who are on the brink of
adulthood, even though this is sometimes a time of struggle for all of us.
PEOPLE: PRAISE GOD FOR THE GIFT OF FAMILY LIFE!
LEADER: Eternal Father of us all, enter our homes, not as the occupant of a guest
room, but as the senior member of each household, that we may live out
your love in the most ordinary parts of life. Keep us human as you make us
holy. Amen.
PEOPLE: PRAISE GOD FOR THE GIFT OF FAMILY LIFE! IT IS ALL YOUR
DOING, LORD. IT IS WONDERFUL IN OUR EYES.
DATE: March 15, 1992
Tags:
Family
Wives
Husbands
Children
Fathers
Submission
Love
Self-love
Obedience
Encouragement
[i] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, citation lost.
[ii] William Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, 192-193.
[iii] The following moving story is quoted by R. Kent Hughes in Colossians and Philemon: The Supremacy of Christ,118.
Dr. Robert Seizer, in his book Mortal Lessons: Notes in the Art of Surgery, tells of performing surgery to remove a tumor in which it was necessary to sever a facial nerve, leaving a young woman’s mouth permanently twisted in palsy. In his own words:
“Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamp light, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry-mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks, “Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks. “Yes,” I say, “it will. It is because the nerve was cut.” She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles. “I like it,” he says. It is kind of cute.” All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her broken mouth, and I, so close, can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.”
Yes, it is possible to love your spouse as your own body. Practically, this means that the husband must do all he can to understand her world.