Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
Children are to obey their parents in the Lord because this is right, a sacred duty of family life that repeats the command to honor father and mother. The words in the Lord limit that obedience to what agrees with God's will, so when parents require sin or what is against conscience the child must obey God rather than parents, without hatred or disrespect. Yielding the will to parents trains the child to yield the will to God and to Christ, so that he who will not obey parents cannot yield to God, and neglect to teach obedience teaches disobedience to the heavenly Father. Parents must therefore teach and require obedience from babyhood and infancy, firmly yet with kindness, patience and godly example, without harshness that provokes to anger. Obedience so learned is cheerful, willing and loving, brings present happiness and the promise that it may be well with children and they may live long, while persistent dishonor and disobedience brings God's curse and shuts out from the kingdom of heaven.
Meaning and Limit
Children are to obey their parents in the Lord because this is right, a sacred biblical duty belonging to family life toward those who cared for and guided them. This obedience is to be carefully and thoroughly taught from the earliest years, even from babyhood, because the child's course has eternal consequences and because present and future happiness and the peace and happiness of parents depend on it, and neglect in teaching it is not excused. Parents are appointed as guardians responsible for training children in the Lord, and children learn respect through both instruction and parental example, honoring parents by treating them respectfully and caring for them when able and given opportunity. Parental will is law only within its rightful limit, to be respected when parental wishes agree with God's will.
That limit is set by the words in the Lord, so the command holds its force only while what parents require is in harmony with God's commands and will, and every parental command that is right must be obeyed. If parents command what contradicts Christ's requirements, demand false swearing, stealing, false witness, Sabbath-breaking or any other sin, or require religious acts against conscience so that obeying them would mean disobeying God, the child must obey God rather than parents, for God's authority has first claim. Even then obedience to God does not authorize hatred or disrespect, and children are to respect their parents wherever conscience permits. Religious commitments made against parents' commands and without their consent are ruled out, since teaching children to disregard parents makes God's commandment ineffective and brings sorrow to families.
To honor father and mother is to love them, respect and reverence them, listen to their teachings, heed their advice and instructions with obedience and submission, treat them respectfully, and care for them when able. Such respect honors God, for parents stand as His representatives called to speak and act in His stead, and a life shaped by Christ gives in this obedience everyday evidence that truth sanctifies character. The obedience required is cheerful, willing, prompt and loving, given from love rather than only under pressure or to escape punishment. It is shown by responding promptly when asked and by cheerfully taking part in domestic duties and sharing the burdens of father and mother, and the same willing respect is owed to sisters and others who care for children though not related to them.
The duty binds children while they are under their parents' roof and dependent on them for food, clothing and schooling, when they should be subject to parental control, fearing and reverencing their parents as was done anciently. A child who chooses to act independently of a parent's wishes cannot at the same time rely on that parent for support, but should respect a father's authority by helping him and sharing responsibilities while dependent, since continued support in the face of disobedience may harm the child's future. When parents are absent, a guardian or those they live with serve as counselors and rulers to whom the same looking for counsel and accepting of home restraint applies while they are young. The obligation extends through life as long as parent and child live, including when children are grown and have families of their own, with obedience, respect and filial love still owed.
Becoming a disciple of Christ and leaving worldly pleasures does not end the duty, for children have then only begun earnest warfare against sin, pride, passion, envy, jealousy, hatred and all the evils of the natural heart. Parents must therefore still watch them, counsel them and decide for them rather than leave them to take their own course and always choose for themselves. This applies especially from ages ten to eighteen, when children grow impatient under restraint, wish to have their own way and to go and come as they please, see no harm in picnics and other gatherings and exciting amusements of young associates, while experienced parents who know their peculiar temperaments and the influence of those things upon their minds keep them back for the sake of their salvation.
Fifth Commandment Link
The command to children to obey parents is the New Testament repetition of the holy law to honor father and mother, so that Old and New Testament alike teach respect and obedience to parents. To obey in the Lord because this is right means honoring father and mother and heeding their advice and instructions with obedience and submission. Children trained according to this word manifest deference for superiors, propriety of deportment, and beauty of character that makes them beloved by associates and beloved of God.
It stands joined to the fifth commandment as the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with obedient children and they may live long on the earth. The promise is conditioned on obedience and is connected with understanding what it means to honor father and mother. Parents are responsible for teaching children to honor God and to understand this promise attached to honoring father and mother. Discipline and nurture in the Lord belong to God's purpose to guide children to submit to His will and the Spirit's guidance rather than grow up careless and unrestrained.
Rebellion against parental authority is sin and lies at the very foundation of misery and crime in the world. Disobedience in any line is transgression of the law, following the first great apostate who as a disobedient subject led the family of heaven into disobedience and with all united with him was cast out of paradise. Those who dishonor and disobey parents and disregard their counsel are commandment-breakers.
Obedience to parents is part of obedience to God and of keeping His commandments, is right and pleasing to God, and is to be taught as belonging within obedience to God. It is to be taught from the earliest years patiently and lovingly, day by day yielding the will to God's will and to God's directions under Christian parental counsel. Children who love and obey their parents in this way are promised entrance into the holy city where there is harmony and joy.
Training for Obedience to God
Yielding the will and wishes to parents trains children to yield their wills to God and to submit to be controlled by Christ and His Spirit. Submission and surrender to Christ are learned through this obedience, and that training begins in the sanctuary of the home, and heeding it is being wise unto salvation. By teaching children to obey parental authority, parents educate them to submit to the authority of God. Learning obedience in childhood prepares children to submit to God's requirements, shaping later religious experience and character and keeping youth from vice and dissipation. Children educated to obey are not difficult of restraint, are not subject to irritable changeable tempers, are in better condition to enjoy life, and more readily and clearly understand their moral obligations.
A child who will not yield to and obey parents cannot yield to God and cannot be a Christian, for obedience to parents is inseparable from willing obedience to God. This duty does not end when children become disciples of Christ and leave worldly pleasures, because they have only just begun earnest warfare against sin, pride, passion, envy, jealousy, hatred and all the evils of the natural heart. Even then parents must keep watching, counseling and deciding for them rather than leaving them to take their own course and always choose for themselves.
Parents are God's representatives appointed as guardians, called to speak and act in His stead, so showing them respect honors God. The mother in particular stands in the place of God to her little ones in their mother's arms through youth, so obedience to her builds right character. Children are to look to their parents to be educated and to obey them, because parents who love and serve God lead them in the pathway of obedience toward the kingdom of glory as God wants His whole family to walk after His counsel. Parents must use every spare moment for this training with kindness and compassion as they desire God to be kind to them, yet true tenderness never allows a child to act contrary to the will and way of God, and must not mold character wrongly by indulgence because children want their own way.
Teaching children to love, respect and obey parents leads them to love, reverence and obey God and Jesus. Children's respect for parents is linked to respect for their heavenly Father, and obedience to the earthly father trains obedience to the heavenly Father. This teaching begins in infancy as parents establish authority and teach household rules, with consequences reaching beyond this life, and children are also to be taught to do what is right because it is right. Parents must make the salvation of Jesus Christ their first business by educating and training children in obedience to gather them into the fold, leaving nothing undone to cooperate with the Holy Spirit.
Obedience to parents is to go together with giving the heart to God in simple language, with praying and trusting Him learned in the home church, preparing children to become members of the family of heaven. Parents should teach children day by day to yield their wills to God's will and help them follow the path of obedience as members of the Lord's family, under Christian parental counsel. Parents who love and serve God must faithfully teach children how to pray and how to love God and one another and how to be true and honest and kind and faithful. Jesus Christ waits to accept and bless children who come to Him and ask Him to pardon all transgressions and take away sins, and when they ask they must believe He will do it.
Neglecting to train children to obey, or allowing them to disobey, teaches them to disobey their heavenly Father. If the will and temper are not subdued in infancy and childhood to yield to parents, yielding that never-subdued will to the requirements of God becomes a severe struggle and conflict. Such neglect is sin against the children and against God, and when children are allowed at home to be disrespectful, disobedient, unthankful and peevish, their sins lie at the door of the parents. The work requires unrelaxed discipline as the child grows older, with time taken to reason, correct errors and patiently teach the right way, because instruction given and character formed in childhood influence the whole religious experience and fit children to become children of God.
Parents Work of Training
Obedience must be taught from the earliest years, from babyhood and infancy, with the first months the most important for establishing the habit. Even the babe in arms must learn who is to rule and must be taught to obey when in the mother's arms and to do her will through youth. Father and mother together must bring the child under control of their will rather than bend to its freaks and whims, beginning before the child is old enough to reason by gentle, persistent effort. The lesson begins in infancy as parents establish their authority and teach the child to follow the household's rules, with consequences reaching beyond this life, and for children seeking baptism parents are to explain this duty and guide them continually in the path of obedience. Early training prevents later conflicts between will and authority that create alienation and bitterness toward parents and teachers and resistance to all authority, human and divine.
Parents are to require firm, decided, perfect obedience, with no license for disobedience, being firm and decided in manner yet kindly and affectionate in spirit. This is to be done with kindness, patience, tenderness, respect, forbearance and love, guiding with fairness and self-control and correcting wrongdoing in love while remaining firm in right principles. Harshness, severity, oppression, driving, intimidating, overbearing rebukes, stern threats, hard cold commands, harsh scolding, unreasonable punishment, inconsistency and broken promises are forbidden, for they provoke to anger, discourage, damage confidence and willingness to do right, break confidence, create slavish fear and teach deception. Parents must keep their own will subject to God's will and must not provoke their children to anger, for parents and children alike are subjects of the heavenly Father and are to be ruled by God, whose law in home life as in government flows from infinite love. Parents who educate in this way have the favor of God because they educate in the way He ordained, and children taught obedience at home will be led to obey their heavenly Father.
Parents' own godly living supports their children's obedience, and they must themselves submit to God and obey Him while teaching, raising their children with care. They must teach both by instruction and by patient, forbearing, firm example, learning respect through word and example and honoring parents by respectful treatment and care when able. This requires perfect control of self, subduing words, expressions of countenance and tones of voice from excitement and passion in order to have decided influence, for good resolutions in children alone will fail unless principles are strengthened by religion and lives influenced by renewing grace. If parents command what contradicts Christ's requirements, children must obey the Lord instead.
The home is the sanctuary where submission and surrender to Christ are learned and where training begins, being wise unto salvation. It is the first and greatest school and the greatest of all educational agencies, where lessons to guide through life are learned from infancy, never allowing disrespect and not allowing self-will and hasty words to go unrebuked. There children are trained for useful work and prepared to meet life's challenges, and there parents and children, with masters and servants and employers and employed as Christ's ambassadors consecrated to God, learn their mutual duties to God and one another and have a message of truth about these relationships to bring to the people. Learning obedience in the early years prepares all to become members of the royal family, with parents and youth together giving thanks in prayer and praise for becoming children of God and citizens of His kingdom.
Parents are responsible before God for this training and carry guilt if they neglect it, for God does not excuse neglect in teaching children this duty because it serves their present and future happiness and the peace of parents. Fathers and mothers have the special work of teaching obedience with kindness and affection, holding the lines and governing rather than being governed by their children. When children are allowed at home to be disrespectful, disobedient, unthankful and peevish, their sins lie at the door of the parents, and neglecting to train them to obey teaches them to disobey their heavenly Father. When parents neglect to govern according to right principles, Satan gains control of the children's lives, and children left to disobey are never happy.
Discipline and nurture in the Lord belong to God's purpose to guide children to submit to His will and the Spirit's guidance rather than grow up careless and unrestrained, and to teach them to honor God and understand the promise connected with honoring father and mother. The work calls for correcting self-will, hasty words and disrespect rather than allowing them, taking time to reason, correct errors and patiently teach the right way, because instruction and character formed in childhood influence the whole religious experience and fit children to become children of God. The will and temper must be subdued and the disposition brought into subjection, for if the will is not subdued in childhood to yield to parents, yielding that never-subdued will to God's requirements becomes a severe struggle, and neglect of this work is sin against the children and against God. A child not so taught keeps an evil, insubordinate will, tries to manage himself and do as he pleases, lacks sound sense, has not felt need of a Saviour, shows contempt for good and needs strictest discipline until he learns he cannot manage himself. Children under strict discipline will at times feel dissatisfied and impatient under restraint and desire their own will, especially from ages ten to eighteen when they see no harm in picnics and other gatherings of young associates, yet experienced parents who know their temperaments and the influence of these things must hold them back from exciting amusements for the sake of salvation.
Promise Judgment and Eternity
Obedience to parents in the Lord serves the present and future happiness of children and the peace and happiness of their parents, and it must be taught carefully and thoroughly because neglect of this duty is not excused. Children trained to yield their will and wishes to parents are not difficult to restrain, are not subject to irritable changeable tempers, are in better condition to enjoy life, and more readily and clearly understand their moral obligations. Such obedience keeps children from many evils, growing through closeness and familiarity with godly parents who are best fitted to see dangers, to understand each child's peculiar temperament and natural disposition from watching every turn of the mind from infancy, to give counsel, and to know what traits to check and restrain. It carries the promise that it may be well with obedient children and that they may live long on the earth, and children who love and obey their parents are promised entrance into the holy city where there is harmony and joy. Those left untaught to yield grow up undisciplined with wrong habits and unhappy dispositions uncorrected, their whole religious experience affected, finding it difficult to yield to pure discipline and bringing trials that burden the church.
Children who dishonor and disobey their parents and disregard their counsel are commandment-breakers who cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven or have part in the earth made new. The purified new earth will have no place for rebellious, disobedient, ungrateful, unruly, unsubmissive children to mar the peace of the ransomed, so obedience and submission must be learned here or they will never be learned.
Disobedience to parents brings judgment and the curse of God, and youth who neglect this claim will be judged by it in the great day when young and old are rewarded according to deeds done in the body. Parents and children alike must follow the Lord and heed all His commandments and seek to know Him. Despising parental authority at home, refusing to be governable and to accept counsel and restraint, brings that curse, and those in responsible positions in publishing work who retain disrespectful impenitent youth become partakers of their sin and bring the curse not only on those youth but on the institution itself. Keeping such youth gives them further opportunity to pervert others with whom they come in contact, so the insubordinate must be separated at once and the interests of the cause guarded like sleepless sentinels against spiritual contamination.
Disobedience to parents joined with unthankfulness and unholiness marks the last days, and the plain instruction on this duty is often disregarded. In these last days the order is reversed, with parents fearing to cross the will of their children, yielding to them and becoming themselves in subjection to their children, instead of restraining them from pride and following their own inclinations and requiring with decision that views of right be followed out. This duty applies to respecting and honoring a mother's judgment and wishes, to honoring the mother who bore them, and to loving and cherishing aged parents who guided children through infancy, childhood and youth and who in age depend in great degree on their children for happiness, peace and health. Disregard of this teaching shows failure to make the Bible the guide and need to learn meekness and lowliness of heart and correct ideas of children's obligations.
A child's course in life has eternal consequences reaching beyond this life, so training to obey all God's requirements must begin from babyhood. Parental guidance and children's obedience belong to helping children reach eternal life, and children should recognize that doing wrong grieves their parents and should try to help them so punishment becomes unnecessary. Dutiful respect for parents' wishes, learned in the home church together with praying and trusting in God, prepares children to become members of the family of heaven and of the royal family. Helpful and submissive obedience in the home is connected with eternal life in the city of God, for children who love God do not insist on their own way and bring unhappiness to themselves and others but submit to parental authority and strive to represent Christ in character. Those who resist sin, believe, wait and watch for Christ's appearing, and love Him will meet Him in peace and enjoy His favor forever, while children left to disobey are never happy and neglect of right government lets Satan gain control of their lives.
Christian children love and honor their God-fearing parents, value their love and approval above every earthly blessing, and make it one of the principal studies and serious concerns of their lives to learn how to make their parents happy. This sense of obligation comes through right instruction and discipline, and where that is lacking children have little sense of obligation and grow more ungrateful and less respectful the more parents do for them. Constant indulgence, petting and waiting upon children fosters ingratitude, disrespect, selfishness and dependence, with expectation of indulgence and that others should yield to, serve and favor them. When expectations are not met they become disappointed, discouraged, murmuring and fretting, hardly able to bear their own weight, and they carry that helpless leaning upon others, resentment and feeling abused when opposed even into manhood and womanhood through life.
Obedience in Daily Life
In courtship and marriage obedience means heeding parental counsel and judgment for future welfare and not acting independently in so important a matter. Secretly drawing a daughter away by private communications and meetings leads her from the duty to obey and honor, is contrary to God's order and the Bible standard, dishonors the father, and a marriage contracted under such deceptive influence is not according to God's word. The man who encourages it shows himself untrue to guardians who care for and guide her and unfaithful to marriage obligations. Obedience here includes conscientious regard for parents' obligations and wishes and kindness and love toward a mother who has cared for them, so pursuing personal desires at her expense brings her pain and sadness, requires a will not softened and subdued by truth to be changed and past wrongs made right, and may require personal sacrifice of feeling to act from principle in keeping with God's word when guided by truth rather than error.
Obedience is shown by cheerfully taking part in domestic duties and sharing the burdens of father and mother, working promptly and neatly, and being faithful in humble practical duties without discouragement over weariness. Faithfully doing useful work at home even when simple or humble and wearisome is right and spiritually elevating, while disobeying and neglecting ordinary duties brings confusion into the home. God's approval rests with loving assurance upon children who so share household responsibilities, and duties within the family are mutual, to be learned together by parents and children toward God and one another. This obedience is rewarded with health of body and peace of mind, with the pleasure of seeing parents freed for social enjoyment and healthful recreation thus prolonging their lives, with formation of right habits and readiness to obey God's requirements through respectful speech and faithful daily duties, and with going out from home as useful members of society with an education far superior to early close confinement in school when neither mind nor body is strong enough to endure the strain.
The duty includes tenderly protecting and cherishing the aged whose heads are white and steps feeble, loving and cherishing parents who guided children through infancy, childhood and youth to adulthood and may now depend in great degree on them for peace, happiness and health. It requires respect and honor for the mother who bore them, conscientious regard for her obligations and wishes, and kindness and love that refuses to pursue personal desires at her expense, with care given when able and given opportunity. Children so trained manifest deference for superiors, propriety of deportment and beauty of character that makes them beloved by associates and beloved of God, while disregard of this plain teaching shows failure to make the Bible the guide and need to learn meekness and lowliness of heart and correct ideas of children's obligations.
Obedience extends to respecting caregivers, sisters who care for children though not related, guardians, and teachers, accepting counsel and restraint at home and looking to parents and, when young and parents are absent, to a guardian or those lived with as counselors and rulers. Doing right makes caregivers glad to sacrifice, while disobedience grieves them and parents. If children disobey parents they will not come under control of teachers in education or in ministry but will be left to drift.
In the church children are to be patiently and lovingly taught from earliest years to yield their wills to God's directions under Christian parental counsel, and for those seeking baptism parents should explain this duty and guide them continually in the path of obedience. Those in responsible positions in publishing work are accountable for the influence prevailing there and must separate at once disrespectful impenitent youth who despise parental authority at home, lest by retaining them they partake of their sin, give further opportunity to pervert other youth, and bring God's curse not only on those youth but on the institution itself, guarding the interests of the cause like sleepless sentinels against spiritual contamination. Parents and children, with masters and servants and employers and employed, as Christ's ambassadors consecrated wholly to God to be molded after the divine likeness, have a message of truth about these relationships to bring to the people as part of the great work to be cut short in righteousness.
The chapter is to be read as a whole, describing daily warfare as spiritual rather than mortal combat, calling for principles of righteousness in all work, and teaching that angels behold words and actions. Obedience learned young enables children and youth to use their capabilities for God's honor and required service, gives everyday evidence that truth sanctifies character, and teaches meekness and humility in Christ. The lesson must begin before the child is old enough to reason by gentle persistent effort establishing the habit of obedience, preventing later conflicts between will and authority that create alienation and bitterness toward parents and teachers and resistance to all authority human and divine. True reverence is revealed by obedience, because God has commanded nothing unessential, and obedience to what He has spoken is the most pleasing way to manifest reverence to Him.
Applied personally, the duty urges a child to be good, obey parents and remain faithful so as to meet loved ones in heaven. Failure to respect and honor a father is failure to follow God's Word. A dependent child is to respect a father's authority by helping him and sharing responsibilities while dependent on him rather than acting independently while relying on his support, for disobedience and contempt for parental counsel are wrong.
Children are to obey their parents in the Lord because this is right, a sacred duty of family life that repeats the command to honor father and mother. The words in the Lord limit that obedience to what agrees with God's will, so when parents require sin or what is against conscience the child must obey God rather than parents, without hatred or disrespect. Yielding the will to parents trains the child to yield the will to God and to Christ, so that he who will not obey parents cannot yield to God, and neglect to teach obedience teaches disobedience to the heavenly Father. Parents must therefore teach and require obedience from babyhood and infancy, firmly yet with kindness, patience and godly example, without harshness that provokes to anger. Obedience so learned is cheerful, willing and loving, brings present happiness and the promise that it may be well with children and they may live long, while persistent dishonor and disobedience brings God's curse and shuts out from the kingdom of heaven.
Meaning and Limit
Children are to obey their parents in the Lord because this is right, a sacred biblical duty belonging to family life toward those who cared for and guided them. This obedience is to be carefully and thoroughly taught from the earliest years, even from babyhood, because the child's course has eternal consequences and because present and future happiness and the peace and happiness of parents depend on it, and neglect in teaching it is not excused. Parents are appointed as guardians responsible for training children in the Lord, and children learn respect through both instruction and parental example, honoring parents by treating them respectfully and caring for them when able and given opportunity. Parental will is law only within its rightful limit, to be respected when parental wishes agree with God's will.
That limit is set by the words in the Lord, so the command holds its force only while what parents require is in harmony with God's commands and will, and every parental command that is right must be obeyed. If parents command what contradicts Christ's requirements, demand false swearing, stealing, false witness, Sabbath-breaking or any other sin, or require religious acts against conscience so that obeying them would mean disobeying God, the child must obey God rather than parents, for God's authority has first claim. Even then obedience to God does not authorize hatred or disrespect, and children are to respect their parents wherever conscience permits. Religious commitments made against parents' commands and without their consent are ruled out, since teaching children to disregard parents makes God's commandment ineffective and brings sorrow to families.
To honor father and mother is to love them, respect and reverence them, listen to their teachings, heed their advice and instructions with obedience and submission, treat them respectfully, and care for them when able. Such respect honors God, for parents stand as His representatives called to speak and act in His stead, and a life shaped by Christ gives in this obedience everyday evidence that truth sanctifies character. The obedience required is cheerful, willing, prompt and loving, given from love rather than only under pressure or to escape punishment. It is shown by responding promptly when asked and by cheerfully taking part in domestic duties and sharing the burdens of father and mother, and the same willing respect is owed to sisters and others who care for children though not related to them.
The duty binds children while they are under their parents' roof and dependent on them for food, clothing and schooling, when they should be subject to parental control, fearing and reverencing their parents as was done anciently. A child who chooses to act independently of a parent's wishes cannot at the same time rely on that parent for support, but should respect a father's authority by helping him and sharing responsibilities while dependent, since continued support in the face of disobedience may harm the child's future. When parents are absent, a guardian or those they live with serve as counselors and rulers to whom the same looking for counsel and accepting of home restraint applies while they are young. The obligation extends through life as long as parent and child live, including when children are grown and have families of their own, with obedience, respect and filial love still owed.
Becoming a disciple of Christ and leaving worldly pleasures does not end the duty, for children have then only begun earnest warfare against sin, pride, passion, envy, jealousy, hatred and all the evils of the natural heart. Parents must therefore still watch them, counsel them and decide for them rather than leave them to take their own course and always choose for themselves. This applies especially from ages ten to eighteen, when children grow impatient under restraint, wish to have their own way and to go and come as they please, see no harm in picnics and other gatherings and exciting amusements of young associates, while experienced parents who know their peculiar temperaments and the influence of those things upon their minds keep them back for the sake of their salvation.
Fifth Commandment Link
The command to children to obey parents is the New Testament repetition of the holy law to honor father and mother, so that Old and New Testament alike teach respect and obedience to parents. To obey in the Lord because this is right means honoring father and mother and heeding their advice and instructions with obedience and submission. Children trained according to this word manifest deference for superiors, propriety of deportment, and beauty of character that makes them beloved by associates and beloved of God.
It stands joined to the fifth commandment as the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with obedient children and they may live long on the earth. The promise is conditioned on obedience and is connected with understanding what it means to honor father and mother. Parents are responsible for teaching children to honor God and to understand this promise attached to honoring father and mother. Discipline and nurture in the Lord belong to God's purpose to guide children to submit to His will and the Spirit's guidance rather than grow up careless and unrestrained.
Rebellion against parental authority is sin and lies at the very foundation of misery and crime in the world. Disobedience in any line is transgression of the law, following the first great apostate who as a disobedient subject led the family of heaven into disobedience and with all united with him was cast out of paradise. Those who dishonor and disobey parents and disregard their counsel are commandment-breakers.
Obedience to parents is part of obedience to God and of keeping His commandments, is right and pleasing to God, and is to be taught as belonging within obedience to God. It is to be taught from the earliest years patiently and lovingly, day by day yielding the will to God's will and to God's directions under Christian parental counsel. Children who love and obey their parents in this way are promised entrance into the holy city where there is harmony and joy.
Training for Obedience to God
Yielding the will and wishes to parents trains children to yield their wills to God and to submit to be controlled by Christ and His Spirit. Submission and surrender to Christ are learned through this obedience, and that training begins in the sanctuary of the home, and heeding it is being wise unto salvation. By teaching children to obey parental authority, parents educate them to submit to the authority of God. Learning obedience in childhood prepares children to submit to God's requirements, shaping later religious experience and character and keeping youth from vice and dissipation. Children educated to obey are not difficult of restraint, are not subject to irritable changeable tempers, are in better condition to enjoy life, and more readily and clearly understand their moral obligations.
A child who will not yield to and obey parents cannot yield to God and cannot be a Christian, for obedience to parents is inseparable from willing obedience to God. This duty does not end when children become disciples of Christ and leave worldly pleasures, because they have only just begun earnest warfare against sin, pride, passion, envy, jealousy, hatred and all the evils of the natural heart. Even then parents must keep watching, counseling and deciding for them rather than leaving them to take their own course and always choose for themselves.
Parents are God's representatives appointed as guardians, called to speak and act in His stead, so showing them respect honors God. The mother in particular stands in the place of God to her little ones in their mother's arms through youth, so obedience to her builds right character. Children are to look to their parents to be educated and to obey them, because parents who love and serve God lead them in the pathway of obedience toward the kingdom of glory as God wants His whole family to walk after His counsel. Parents must use every spare moment for this training with kindness and compassion as they desire God to be kind to them, yet true tenderness never allows a child to act contrary to the will and way of God, and must not mold character wrongly by indulgence because children want their own way.
Teaching children to love, respect and obey parents leads them to love, reverence and obey God and Jesus. Children's respect for parents is linked to respect for their heavenly Father, and obedience to the earthly father trains obedience to the heavenly Father. This teaching begins in infancy as parents establish authority and teach household rules, with consequences reaching beyond this life, and children are also to be taught to do what is right because it is right. Parents must make the salvation of Jesus Christ their first business by educating and training children in obedience to gather them into the fold, leaving nothing undone to cooperate with the Holy Spirit.
Obedience to parents is to go together with giving the heart to God in simple language, with praying and trusting Him learned in the home church, preparing children to become members of the family of heaven. Parents should teach children day by day to yield their wills to God's will and help them follow the path of obedience as members of the Lord's family, under Christian parental counsel. Parents who love and serve God must faithfully teach children how to pray and how to love God and one another and how to be true and honest and kind and faithful. Jesus Christ waits to accept and bless children who come to Him and ask Him to pardon all transgressions and take away sins, and when they ask they must believe He will do it.
Neglecting to train children to obey, or allowing them to disobey, teaches them to disobey their heavenly Father. If the will and temper are not subdued in infancy and childhood to yield to parents, yielding that never-subdued will to the requirements of God becomes a severe struggle and conflict. Such neglect is sin against the children and against God, and when children are allowed at home to be disrespectful, disobedient, unthankful and peevish, their sins lie at the door of the parents. The work requires unrelaxed discipline as the child grows older, with time taken to reason, correct errors and patiently teach the right way, because instruction given and character formed in childhood influence the whole religious experience and fit children to become children of God.
Parents Work of Training
Obedience must be taught from the earliest years, from babyhood and infancy, with the first months the most important for establishing the habit. Even the babe in arms must learn who is to rule and must be taught to obey when in the mother's arms and to do her will through youth. Father and mother together must bring the child under control of their will rather than bend to its freaks and whims, beginning before the child is old enough to reason by gentle, persistent effort. The lesson begins in infancy as parents establish their authority and teach the child to follow the household's rules, with consequences reaching beyond this life, and for children seeking baptism parents are to explain this duty and guide them continually in the path of obedience. Early training prevents later conflicts between will and authority that create alienation and bitterness toward parents and teachers and resistance to all authority, human and divine.
Parents are to require firm, decided, perfect obedience, with no license for disobedience, being firm and decided in manner yet kindly and affectionate in spirit. This is to be done with kindness, patience, tenderness, respect, forbearance and love, guiding with fairness and self-control and correcting wrongdoing in love while remaining firm in right principles. Harshness, severity, oppression, driving, intimidating, overbearing rebukes, stern threats, hard cold commands, harsh scolding, unreasonable punishment, inconsistency and broken promises are forbidden, for they provoke to anger, discourage, damage confidence and willingness to do right, break confidence, create slavish fear and teach deception. Parents must keep their own will subject to God's will and must not provoke their children to anger, for parents and children alike are subjects of the heavenly Father and are to be ruled by God, whose law in home life as in government flows from infinite love. Parents who educate in this way have the favor of God because they educate in the way He ordained, and children taught obedience at home will be led to obey their heavenly Father.
Parents' own godly living supports their children's obedience, and they must themselves submit to God and obey Him while teaching, raising their children with care. They must teach both by instruction and by patient, forbearing, firm example, learning respect through word and example and honoring parents by respectful treatment and care when able. This requires perfect control of self, subduing words, expressions of countenance and tones of voice from excitement and passion in order to have decided influence, for good resolutions in children alone will fail unless principles are strengthened by religion and lives influenced by renewing grace. If parents command what contradicts Christ's requirements, children must obey the Lord instead.
The home is the sanctuary where submission and surrender to Christ are learned and where training begins, being wise unto salvation. It is the first and greatest school and the greatest of all educational agencies, where lessons to guide through life are learned from infancy, never allowing disrespect and not allowing self-will and hasty words to go unrebuked. There children are trained for useful work and prepared to meet life's challenges, and there parents and children, with masters and servants and employers and employed as Christ's ambassadors consecrated to God, learn their mutual duties to God and one another and have a message of truth about these relationships to bring to the people. Learning obedience in the early years prepares all to become members of the royal family, with parents and youth together giving thanks in prayer and praise for becoming children of God and citizens of His kingdom.
Parents are responsible before God for this training and carry guilt if they neglect it, for God does not excuse neglect in teaching children this duty because it serves their present and future happiness and the peace of parents. Fathers and mothers have the special work of teaching obedience with kindness and affection, holding the lines and governing rather than being governed by their children. When children are allowed at home to be disrespectful, disobedient, unthankful and peevish, their sins lie at the door of the parents, and neglecting to train them to obey teaches them to disobey their heavenly Father. When parents neglect to govern according to right principles, Satan gains control of the children's lives, and children left to disobey are never happy.
Discipline and nurture in the Lord belong to God's purpose to guide children to submit to His will and the Spirit's guidance rather than grow up careless and unrestrained, and to teach them to honor God and understand the promise connected with honoring father and mother. The work calls for correcting self-will, hasty words and disrespect rather than allowing them, taking time to reason, correct errors and patiently teach the right way, because instruction and character formed in childhood influence the whole religious experience and fit children to become children of God. The will and temper must be subdued and the disposition brought into subjection, for if the will is not subdued in childhood to yield to parents, yielding that never-subdued will to God's requirements becomes a severe struggle, and neglect of this work is sin against the children and against God. A child not so taught keeps an evil, insubordinate will, tries to manage himself and do as he pleases, lacks sound sense, has not felt need of a Saviour, shows contempt for good and needs strictest discipline until he learns he cannot manage himself. Children under strict discipline will at times feel dissatisfied and impatient under restraint and desire their own will, especially from ages ten to eighteen when they see no harm in picnics and other gatherings of young associates, yet experienced parents who know their temperaments and the influence of these things must hold them back from exciting amusements for the sake of salvation.
Promise Judgment and Eternity
Obedience to parents in the Lord serves the present and future happiness of children and the peace and happiness of their parents, and it must be taught carefully and thoroughly because neglect of this duty is not excused. Children trained to yield their will and wishes to parents are not difficult to restrain, are not subject to irritable changeable tempers, are in better condition to enjoy life, and more readily and clearly understand their moral obligations. Such obedience keeps children from many evils, growing through closeness and familiarity with godly parents who are best fitted to see dangers, to understand each child's peculiar temperament and natural disposition from watching every turn of the mind from infancy, to give counsel, and to know what traits to check and restrain. It carries the promise that it may be well with obedient children and that they may live long on the earth, and children who love and obey their parents are promised entrance into the holy city where there is harmony and joy. Those left untaught to yield grow up undisciplined with wrong habits and unhappy dispositions uncorrected, their whole religious experience affected, finding it difficult to yield to pure discipline and bringing trials that burden the church.
Children who dishonor and disobey their parents and disregard their counsel are commandment-breakers who cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven or have part in the earth made new. The purified new earth will have no place for rebellious, disobedient, ungrateful, unruly, unsubmissive children to mar the peace of the ransomed, so obedience and submission must be learned here or they will never be learned.
Disobedience to parents brings judgment and the curse of God, and youth who neglect this claim will be judged by it in the great day when young and old are rewarded according to deeds done in the body. Parents and children alike must follow the Lord and heed all His commandments and seek to know Him. Despising parental authority at home, refusing to be governable and to accept counsel and restraint, brings that curse, and those in responsible positions in publishing work who retain disrespectful impenitent youth become partakers of their sin and bring the curse not only on those youth but on the institution itself. Keeping such youth gives them further opportunity to pervert others with whom they come in contact, so the insubordinate must be separated at once and the interests of the cause guarded like sleepless sentinels against spiritual contamination.
Disobedience to parents joined with unthankfulness and unholiness marks the last days, and the plain instruction on this duty is often disregarded. In these last days the order is reversed, with parents fearing to cross the will of their children, yielding to them and becoming themselves in subjection to their children, instead of restraining them from pride and following their own inclinations and requiring with decision that views of right be followed out. This duty applies to respecting and honoring a mother's judgment and wishes, to honoring the mother who bore them, and to loving and cherishing aged parents who guided children through infancy, childhood and youth and who in age depend in great degree on their children for happiness, peace and health. Disregard of this teaching shows failure to make the Bible the guide and need to learn meekness and lowliness of heart and correct ideas of children's obligations.
A child's course in life has eternal consequences reaching beyond this life, so training to obey all God's requirements must begin from babyhood. Parental guidance and children's obedience belong to helping children reach eternal life, and children should recognize that doing wrong grieves their parents and should try to help them so punishment becomes unnecessary. Dutiful respect for parents' wishes, learned in the home church together with praying and trusting in God, prepares children to become members of the family of heaven and of the royal family. Helpful and submissive obedience in the home is connected with eternal life in the city of God, for children who love God do not insist on their own way and bring unhappiness to themselves and others but submit to parental authority and strive to represent Christ in character. Those who resist sin, believe, wait and watch for Christ's appearing, and love Him will meet Him in peace and enjoy His favor forever, while children left to disobey are never happy and neglect of right government lets Satan gain control of their lives.
Christian children love and honor their God-fearing parents, value their love and approval above every earthly blessing, and make it one of the principal studies and serious concerns of their lives to learn how to make their parents happy. This sense of obligation comes through right instruction and discipline, and where that is lacking children have little sense of obligation and grow more ungrateful and less respectful the more parents do for them. Constant indulgence, petting and waiting upon children fosters ingratitude, disrespect, selfishness and dependence, with expectation of indulgence and that others should yield to, serve and favor them. When expectations are not met they become disappointed, discouraged, murmuring and fretting, hardly able to bear their own weight, and they carry that helpless leaning upon others, resentment and feeling abused when opposed even into manhood and womanhood through life.
Obedience in Daily Life
In courtship and marriage obedience means heeding parental counsel and judgment for future welfare and not acting independently in so important a matter. Secretly drawing a daughter away by private communications and meetings leads her from the duty to obey and honor, is contrary to God's order and the Bible standard, dishonors the father, and a marriage contracted under such deceptive influence is not according to God's word. The man who encourages it shows himself untrue to guardians who care for and guide her and unfaithful to marriage obligations. Obedience here includes conscientious regard for parents' obligations and wishes and kindness and love toward a mother who has cared for them, so pursuing personal desires at her expense brings her pain and sadness, requires a will not softened and subdued by truth to be changed and past wrongs made right, and may require personal sacrifice of feeling to act from principle in keeping with God's word when guided by truth rather than error.
Obedience is shown by cheerfully taking part in domestic duties and sharing the burdens of father and mother, working promptly and neatly, and being faithful in humble practical duties without discouragement over weariness. Faithfully doing useful work at home even when simple or humble and wearisome is right and spiritually elevating, while disobeying and neglecting ordinary duties brings confusion into the home. God's approval rests with loving assurance upon children who so share household responsibilities, and duties within the family are mutual, to be learned together by parents and children toward God and one another. This obedience is rewarded with health of body and peace of mind, with the pleasure of seeing parents freed for social enjoyment and healthful recreation thus prolonging their lives, with formation of right habits and readiness to obey God's requirements through respectful speech and faithful daily duties, and with going out from home as useful members of society with an education far superior to early close confinement in school when neither mind nor body is strong enough to endure the strain.
The duty includes tenderly protecting and cherishing the aged whose heads are white and steps feeble, loving and cherishing parents who guided children through infancy, childhood and youth to adulthood and may now depend in great degree on them for peace, happiness and health. It requires respect and honor for the mother who bore them, conscientious regard for her obligations and wishes, and kindness and love that refuses to pursue personal desires at her expense, with care given when able and given opportunity. Children so trained manifest deference for superiors, propriety of deportment and beauty of character that makes them beloved by associates and beloved of God, while disregard of this plain teaching shows failure to make the Bible the guide and need to learn meekness and lowliness of heart and correct ideas of children's obligations.
Obedience extends to respecting caregivers, sisters who care for children though not related, guardians, and teachers, accepting counsel and restraint at home and looking to parents and, when young and parents are absent, to a guardian or those lived with as counselors and rulers. Doing right makes caregivers glad to sacrifice, while disobedience grieves them and parents. If children disobey parents they will not come under control of teachers in education or in ministry but will be left to drift.
In the church children are to be patiently and lovingly taught from earliest years to yield their wills to God's directions under Christian parental counsel, and for those seeking baptism parents should explain this duty and guide them continually in the path of obedience. Those in responsible positions in publishing work are accountable for the influence prevailing there and must separate at once disrespectful impenitent youth who despise parental authority at home, lest by retaining them they partake of their sin, give further opportunity to pervert other youth, and bring God's curse not only on those youth but on the institution itself, guarding the interests of the cause like sleepless sentinels against spiritual contamination. Parents and children, with masters and servants and employers and employed, as Christ's ambassadors consecrated wholly to God to be molded after the divine likeness, have a message of truth about these relationships to bring to the people as part of the great work to be cut short in righteousness.
The chapter is to be read as a whole, describing daily warfare as spiritual rather than mortal combat, calling for principles of righteousness in all work, and teaching that angels behold words and actions. Obedience learned young enables children and youth to use their capabilities for God's honor and required service, gives everyday evidence that truth sanctifies character, and teaches meekness and humility in Christ. The lesson must begin before the child is old enough to reason by gentle persistent effort establishing the habit of obedience, preventing later conflicts between will and authority that create alienation and bitterness toward parents and teachers and resistance to all authority human and divine. True reverence is revealed by obedience, because God has commanded nothing unessential, and obedience to what He has spoken is the most pleasing way to manifest reverence to Him.
Applied personally, the duty urges a child to be good, obey parents and remain faithful so as to meet loved ones in heaven. Failure to respect and honor a father is failure to follow God's Word. A dependent child is to respect a father's authority by helping him and sharing responsibilities while dependent on him rather than acting independently while relying on his support, for disobedience and contempt for parental counsel are wrong.