Because it says so in the Bible….

In some ways, this next passage is no less contentious than the “Wives submit to your husbands” passage we looked at yesterday. Let’s break it into two sections – family relations and then slaves.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ² ‘Honour your father and mother’– which is the first commandment with a promise – ³ ‘so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ ⁴ Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

I’m not going to preach at my children. Nor today will I cover my obligations as a child to my parents (although I suspect that would be fertile territory for a discussion and debate). Let’s look at verse 4. As a father, I am called to not exasperate my children. In other versions, the translation is more common as “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger”. Blimey, some of my children get angry at so many things – is it really all my fault and do I really need to change to actually live by this passage?

I know there are times when I really exasperate my children.

Times when I am over protective and not keen to allow a new boundary to be broken.

Times when I really do feel I know better than them. I know the risks.  I know the dangers. I see danger in almost everything.

Times when I seem to show favouritism. Takes years for one child to break a boundary but the next child down in age crosses that boundary in a heartbeat.

Times when I want what I perceive to be the best for my child, but that best may not be the best for them. They are not me. They are not motivated in the same way or by the same things as me.

Times when I fail to notice an achievement and celebrate it. Perhaps because the achievement is something I find easy, but for them, this is their Everest and I didn’t even notice.

And then there are times when I am just being me. Caught up in my own life, its challenges, its highs and its lows. No time to see what they are dealing with.

Who would be a father? We really must be the most exasperating people to live with. (Just checked with the wife and she has confirmed I am very exasperating to live with. She did qualify that it wasn’t my fault!)

So I recognise that I need to change if I am to be the father my children need me to be.

I was about to write a detailed plan of how I could be better. But then I found this confession from a Christian father about what he would do differently:

My family’s all grown and the kids are all gone. But if I had to do it all over again, this is what I would do. I would love my wife more in front of my children. I would laugh with my children more—at our mistakes and our joys. I would listen more, even to the littlest child. I would be more honest about my own weaknesses, never pretending perfection. I would pray differently for my family; instead of focusing on them, I’d focus on me. I would do more things together with my children. I would encourage them more and bestow more praise. I would pay more attention to little things, like deeds and words of thoughtfulness. And then, finally, if I had to do it all over again, I would share God more intimately with my family; every ordinary thing that happened in every ordinary day I would use to direct them to God.

And all I can say to that is Amen.

⁵ Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. ⁶ Obey them not only to win their favour when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. ⁷ Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, ⁸ because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. ⁹ And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favouritism with him.

And now we get into what was a very controversial passage 150 years ago.  When slavery was rife and the perpetrators were white protestant Christians, this verse was the justification as to why slavery was OK. Why was Paul giving slaves instructions on how slaves should behave if it wasn’t OK to have slaves?

Context is everything. In a society where slaves, once sold into bondage, became the personal belongings of their master and that the master had the right to decide everything for them including when they died,  this was a brutal context. Paul knew that and he was under no illusion that he could fix slavery overnight. So he preached a message of being a better slave and a better slave master. Even the most Bible-based of so called Bible-based Christians is not now campaigning to bring back slavery.

So what does this teach us? The Bible was written in a context and we should not cherry pick an individual verse and project our 21st century context on to it without first understanding where it come from.

40 years ago, you could no get remarried in an Anglican church without the permission of the Bishop. The rules changed and now even the Royal family has several marriages involving divorcees. Some truth is absolute. Some is defined by its context and when the context changes, the truth moves with it. And the lesson from that? Read your Bible humbly looking for truth, not looking for who you can bash with it.