Dad as Disciple

The scriptures referred to are Ephesians 5:21-6:4 and Colossians 3:18-21.

When reading Harper's Encyclopedia of Bible Life I was surprised by the fact that biblical Hebrew had no word for family, despite the importance that societal unit has in scripture. Instead the word “house” is used. And the head of the house was the father. According to this encyclopedia, “Most noticeably in patriarchal days and in the period of the judges, the family form a unit for worship, with its head (male) as priest, and a civil unit, with the father as the military leader, the judge, and the disciplinarian.” In regards to the latter role, the father had the power of life and death over his children. Thus, as the book says, “Within his own family the father was a mini-dictator whose word was law.”

One reason for this was that at those times, the Israelites were nomads or just transitioning into settled agricultural and urban life, and society was pretty much structured and regimented as one would the military. There was no standing army or police to protect the family or individual members from the aggression of outsiders and so families, clans and tribes had to band together and perform those functions to survive.

The book does caution that this generalized picture changes over the two millennia covered by the Bible. Society, its customs and which functions are delegated to whom evolve and change. The government takes over handling protection and justice. So today we do not let parents kill or even abuse their children. We recognize a higher law. And this too goes back to the Bible.

If you have been listening to my daily Facebook Live videos of reading a chapter of the Bible you may remember that I gave some explanation and context to the sections of the letters to the Ephesians and to the Colossians called “household codes.” These were instructions on how the members of a family should behave toward one another. These lists were common among pagan thinkers, starting with Aristotle, and Paul adapted them with some uniquely Christian features. For instance, the pagan codes were usually addressed only to the husband and father and they definitely saw him as a mini-dictator, telling him to rule over his wife, children and slaves. Not so with Paul. As a note to Ephesians in the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says, “Whereas household codes normally instructed the male householder how to rule, Paul begins and ends with mutual submission (5:21; 6:9), calls for gentleness with children (6:4), and instructs husbands not how to rule their wives but how to love them sacrificially (5:25).”

Sadly even some supposedly educated Christians do not pick up on the differences between the Christian ideal for husbands and fathers and the more ancient one. In college the church I attended had an adult Sunday school class on the Christian family. And one slide showed a hammer, a chisel and a diamond. The hammer was labeled the father, the chisel was labeled the mother, and the diamond was labeled the child. While the teacher was expounding on this bizarre and unBiblical visual metaphor, my girlfriend at that time leaned over and whispered, “So the father hits the mother and the children end up cracked.” I had to stifle myself as I cracked up.

That teacher got it very wrong but unfortunately he was not alone in his idea of Christian family dynamics. And as a reaction to such patriarchy we have people on the other end of the spectrum of thought who seem to feel that fathers make no important contribution except at the conception. As usual, reality is a lot more nuanced.

First let's look at what Paul actually says. In Ephesians 5:21 he begins by saying, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” He isn't even talking to families at this point but to all Christians, whom he has just encouraged to speak and sing to each other and give thanks to God. So this mutual deference to one another is something all followers of Jesus should practice.

Then Paul says, “Wives, to your husbands as to the Lord.” I didn't misquote that. In the Greek the verb “submit” does not appear. This is a continuation of the first sentence, so it should read: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ; wives, to your husbands as to the Lord.” So wives are not singled out to submit but are used as an example of this principle which Paul says applies to all Christians.

I am not saying that Paul is completely divorced from the culture he grew up in because he says that the husband is head of the wife. But this is not because, as Aristotle thought, women are inferior to men. On the contrary, Paul says in Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) By using the term “head” he is resorting to the same kind of body analogy he uses when he says that we are all members of the body of Christ, each with different functions but no part less important than any other. So he draws a parallel between Christ being the head of the church and the husband being the head of the wife and makes the comparison between the church submitting to Christ and the wife submitting to her husband.

And, unlike his instructions to children, Paul doesn't say the wife must obey her husband. She is not to be treated like a child. She is an adult. It's interesting that among Roman citizens, though not in Greek society, the wife did not have to obey the husband, though she did have to obey her father! She was always to act as a dutiful daughter. Paul doesn't say that either.

And remember: pagan household codes were written to the husband alone. Paul, however, is writing to each member of the family.

Next he does get to the husband, but he doesn't tell him to rule over his wife. Instead, he writes, “Husbands, love your wives...” There's more but I want to stop there for a moment. Since most marriages were arranged for social and financial reasons, there was no expectation that a husband back then love his wife. His duty was to provide for her and his children and to keep them in line. Love, though it might develop over time, was not required. In fact it was okay if the husband had a mistress or had sex with other women. Adultery was only wrong for the wife. The paternity of her children was paramount. His fidelity was not. Jesus changed that.

So right off the bat Paul is telling the husband that he must love his wife. And he doesn't mean mere fondness. He writes, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...” In other words, love her enough to die for her! Now I don't think that Paul means manufacture emotions akin to the infatuation of adolescents, like Romeo and Juliet. Love, in the Christian sense, is first of all a decision. When Jesus said we are to love our enemies, I don't think he meant we had to have warm and fuzzy feelings about them. He meant approach, pray for, speak to and treat all people in a loving way. The emotional part of love may eventually develop. And we see that this often happens in arranged marriages, which Paul was largely dealing with. Paul further says, “husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.” Again, we all have issues with our bodies but, as Paul says, we feed and take care of them. Just as you should have a positive relationship with your body, so you should with your wife. And here Paul explicitly reminds us that we are members of Christ's body.

What this also means is that domestic abuse is forbidden. Jesus didn't abuse us and so we cannot abuse our wives, or husbands for that matter. And in fact, in his briefer version of a household code in his letter to the Colossians, Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.” (Colossians 3:19) So there is nothing in these passages that gives someone a license to do whatever he or she wants to their spouse. They are to act in Christlike, self-sacrificial love towards one another.

When Paul addresses children, he of course tells them to obey their parents. He reminds them that the commandment to honor one's father and mother comes with a promise: “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” Again Paul is basing this on the idea that the parents love their children and have their best interests at heart. He doesn't feel that he has to tell the parents to love their children enough to die for them. Even animals are willing to die to save their offspring.

What he does say is this: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children...” The Greek literally says not to “provoke them to anger.” In other words, don't needlessly aggravate them. In my youth, the issue that inflamed fathers was long hair on guys, which looks pretty trivial compared to the issues kids face today: drugs, bullying, depression, suicide. And in Colossians Paul says, “Fathers, do not stir up anger in your children so that they not become discouraged.” (Colossians 3:21) That last word can also be translated “become disheartened or despondent.” 2000 years ago Paul was warning us about depression in kids. Raising children has never been easy. At the very least we need to have our priorities straight and not make mountains out of molehills. Harping on minor things while ignoring the problems that are really troubling them can leave kids dispirited or brokenhearted.

Back in Ephesians Paul says, “Instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” A lot of people think that means just teach them doctrines and to be good, honest, obedient, etc. And that is part of it. But if we remember growing up, there are some other Biblical truths helpful to kids.

First, we need to teach them that no human being is perfect and no human creation is perfect. As it says in Romans “None is righteous, no, not one...For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:10, 23) When you are young you are idealistic. And that's fine as long as you are also realistic. I think a lot of the disillusionment we see in young people comes when they suddenly realize that people, including their parents and their heroes, are not perfect, or that society and its institutions are not perfect. So they get cynical. Or they get down on themselves because they aren't perfect or perfectly happy and they despair. They let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

Only God is perfect and while our goal is to be like God, none of us are there yet. Not even we parents or we religious leaders. Even Paul wrote, “Not that I have already attained this—that is, I have not already been perfected—but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, with this goal in mind, I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14)

The Bible often symbolizes God as being on a mountain: Sinai or Zion. But we haven't reached the summit and we won't in this life. We are still climbing, following Jesus, our guide, and equipped and empowered by the Spirit. Or to use a video-gaming analogy, we are still playing on this level and we will have to overcome a lot of obstacles to make it to the next. You don't give up just because neither you nor anyone you know has played it perfectly or made it to the end yet. Instead you listen to the advice of those who have gotten farther than you, you work together with your fellow players and you hone your skills.

One thing I noticed with our kids is that the opinion of a peer made more impact than ours. The only way to counteract that somewhat is to show your kids that you too are still learning. Disciple just means student. Our whole life we should be learning about God. And sometimes a kid will listen to a fellow student, especially one a bit older with a bit more knowledge. The world is full of people who think they know everything and will not listen to the doubts and questions of others. I think Paul's approach of “I'm not perfect; I'm still working on this but let me share what I've learned,” is more effective than pretending to be all-knowing. Because at some point your kids will figure out you don't know it all and may stop listening to you entirely. I think this false front of omniscience is why so many young people leave fundamentalism. When they find out their parents and leaders don't know everything, they conclude they know nothing about the real world.

Jesus said, “Therefore every expert in the law who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and old.” (Matthew 13:52) The old are the essential truths and basic principles of following Jesus. What is new are the new applications of those truths and principles to situations that arise which are not specifically addressed in the scripture. As we see in the Bible, society evolves and changes and in our treasure chest (or toolbox, if you will) we should have the Bible, tradition (which is how Christians in the past dealt with novel situations), and reason--thinking that begins with the premises in scripture and weaves in data and new knowledge to craft an appropriate Christian response.

It was never easy to be a father. At least, we don't have to be ready to fend off neighboring tribes or invading empires. But we still have to protect our families, often from new and subtler dangers. So we must remain students of God's word and of the world in which we live. It helps to have a partner you would die for. And it helps to realize you both should defer to the other in matters in which one is better than the other. You want to impart to your kids some basic rules and self-discipline but not in a way that implies you are infallible. Teach them the virtue of being able to learn new things, while applying the wisdom and experience of those who came before. They may drive you crazy at times but don't drive them to despair. Remember what it was like to swing between extremes of cockiness and crippling self-doubt. Remember what it was like when you lost your innocence about the imperfections of the world and its people and yourself. Share that with them and let them know it's not the end of the world.

The best way to teach people how to live is by example. Paul said, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1) I like that because it meant that not only could they observe Paul but also how well he was doing at following Jesus. They could see what he was getting right and where he needed to improve and both were instructive to Christians following Jesus on whatever path he was leading them.

Studies show that if a father is a positive presence in a child's life, they are more likely to have a positive relationship with God. And, God willing, our kids will outlive us. So we want them to have a relationship with their heavenly Father, who will be with them when we no longer are, who will never leave or forsake them, and who will be there to reunite us when we all stand on the summit of his perfect love.