Lesson for July 25, 2021
The Book of Ephesians
Chapter 6:1-12
Verses 1-9
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. Fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men,knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.”
Under the Laws of Divine Establishment, the parents are the authority in the home. The parents are the most basic authority in human life and have been since Adam and Eve were the first parents. As goes your attitudes toward your parents, often goes your attitude toward authority in life. Parents are responsible to train the children in both the functions and the principles of life. This means the parents must train both the body and the soul of their children. Therefore, parents are not only responsible for food shelter, clothing, and health of their children but parents are responsible for the spiritual life, thinking, attitudes, manners, and self-discipline of their children.
All children must be taught both the fundamentals of freedom as well as the principles of authority in life, and how the two have been merged into the Laws of Divine Establishment. Children must be trained and taught to respect the freedom, the privacy, the property, and the rights of others. Christian parents have the responsibility of evangelizing their own children through the communication of the Gospel. Once the children are saved by faith in Christ, the parents must provide doctrinal teaching for their children under the command of Deuteronomy 6:6-9; 7:9. As children become oriented to the concept of the local church, they must be taught to recognize the authority of the pastor and the teachers, and they must be trained to concentrate on their teaching. (Hebrews 13:7,17)
Nothing is more destructive to the individual than to go through life rejecting authority because of bad habits from childhood. Since parents are the original teachers and authority for children, obedience, respect, and concentration must be demanded by them. Parents are God’s gift to the children to act as their protectors, teachers, instructors, and to teach discernment until they reach maturity. Children begin helpless. Parents provide the training, teaching, and discipline for them. Regardless of how unreasonable or how unfair the parental policy appears to be, the child must obey his parents as part of his respect for God.
Fair administration of discipline in the common-sense policies of the home always gain the respect of the children. Good discipline and fair treatment in childhood results in love and respect. There is a promise of blessing in the fifth commandment of Ten Commandments (Honor your mother and father). The blessing is prosperity and long life. Longevity of life is a blessing when it is associated with spiritual prosperity. So, the person who in childhood obeys his parents, respects the authority of his parents, will be happy and well-adjusted in life. “That it may be well” refers to a life of prosperity and happiness based on the principle of respect for authority in childhood.
Fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Fathers are not to engage in unjust treatment, abusive authority, or taking their frustrations out on their children. Parents have no right to abuse the authority given to them. What they should do is train their children with academic and spiritual instruction. The training comes through teaching them basic life skills like proper grooming, principles of health and hygiene and helping around the house. In the mental realm, providing a vocabulary with which to think and training in the field of self-discipline and concentration. Parents should always select a church to attend where accurate doctrine is taught to children as well as adults, rather than one that offers only fun programs.
Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. In verses 5-9, we find both the responsibility of labor and the responsibility of management in the field of business enterprise. To a believer whether he is in management or labor, it makes no difference. His job, whatever it is, is a part of full time Christian service. Every believer is a member of the Royal Family of God and no matter what he does in life, it is a part of full time Christian service and is to do the job as unto the Lord.
Originally these verses applied to slaves in the Roman Empire. While slavery was a great social evil at this time, Paul never became diverted to condemn it or to seek to rectify the problem by social action. He told the slaves that when they received Christ not to seek to be free but to stay as they were and honor the Lord. Should the Lord provide their freedom then and only then they were to use their freedom to glorify the Lord. As this applies to us today, it should be you employees. The application applies to believers of the royal family who work for someone else.
The slave was not to be concerned with the rights or wrongs of his circumstances; he was to be concerned about doing his job to please the Lord. He was to be concerned about growing in grace. His job was to learn Bible doctrine as a believer and to reach spiritual maturity, and to leave his circumstances in the hands of the Lord. This same principle applies to an employee.
Your masters according to the flesh refers to the principle of authority found in the Laws of Divine Establishment in the area of business enterprise. Fear and trembling means respect. In the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ means that with Bible doctrine in the soul no matter how humble our job, if we are employed by someone else, we are to do our job sincerely, with integrity to please the Lord. God can be glorified by the way you do your job.
Not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Eyeservice means service that is performed only to attract attention, hypocritical function on the job. It refers to those who are people pleasers for their own gain. Every believer must do his job to please the Lord, whether he is supervised or not, and he is not to try to make up for lack of ability by becoming a people pleaser.
With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men,knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. Divine good is produced on the job by the filling of the Spirit through application of Bible doctrine. The reward for living your life under the filling of the Holy Spirit is the same for the servant and the one who is free. The principle of blessings and rewards applies equally to every believer. God does not discriminate based on your circumstance in life. So, the application is to do your work and live your life to please the Lord as if He was your supervisor (which He is).
And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him. This refers to those who are in management. Management is to render good will service to those under their authority to please the Lord.
This demands that Christian management be fair and just in the treatment of employees under their authority. Christian management must be consistent in desisting from threatening, bullying or unfair treatment. Every believer in management is responsible to Jesus Christ for their attitude and treatment of those who work for them. And since there is no partiality with God, likewise there is to be no partiality with management toward those they supervise.
Verses 10-12
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
Being strong in the Lord demands the consistent study and application of Bible doctrine. Spiritual strength comes from two sources: the filling of the Holy Spirit and accurate Bible doctrine in your soul. These verses are Paul’s final encouragement and admonition to the believers in Ephesus to execute the Christian Way of Life. Paul used an analogy that he was very familiar with having been in prison and under house arrest and guarded by the Roman Praetorian Guard. He was familiar with the armor they wore and used it used as an analogy for the spiritual armor of the believer.
Putting on the full armor of God is an act of the free will of the believer. Some believers with obey the command and some will not obey it. It is also important to note that we are commanded to put all of the armor God provides for us. Failure to comply with the command from God to put on the full array of armor He has provided will result in an incomplete result. Our goal as believers should be to reach spiritual maturity and super-grace. Anything short of that is incomplete execution of the Christ Way of Life. We the greatest resource and the greatest tolls that can be given to us in this dispensation of Grace. Therefore, we have no excuse for not availing ourselves to the complete, full armor of God.
It is imperative for the advancing believer to put on the entire armor of God because this is his defense against the divisive schemes of Satan, his demons and his world system. Believers are in a spiritual battle with the forces of Satan. We were created to resolve the Angelic Conflict and we are in a spiritual battle whether we realize it or not. Satan’s desire is to keep us detracted and confused. He does this through his world system and the influence he imposes on our thinking.
Knowing the person of the Satan means understanding his strategy and tactics. Satan is the ruler of this world, and he has total power to influence the world system which he controls. (Luke 4:5-7; John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; II Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2) He has the power to destroy us, to remove us, to discredit us; and only the grace of God offsets all of the tremendous power. Furthermore, he is unseen. Therefore, as the ruler of this world the devil has policy and strategy regarding the nations of the world. His policies are anti-Christian and anti-establishment. So, we must understand that Satan has policy, strategy and tactics by which he puts his policies into operation. (Revelation 12:9; 20:3,8) Satan has strategy regarding unbelievers in the world. His strategy runs the gamut from blinding the minds of the unbelievers who are exposed to the Gospel, to every form of unbeliever reversionism, as in II Peter 2. The devil’s strategy regarding the unbeliever is found in Luke 8:12; II Corinthians 4:3,4; II Thessalonians 2:7-10; Colossians 2:8; Revelation 17. Religion is the devil’s ace trump in this area of his policy and strategy.
Satan has strategy also regarding believers. He accuses the believers in Heaven. (II Corinthians 2:11; Job 1:6-11; Zechariah 3:1,2; Revelation 12:9,10; I John 2:1,2) He is the sponsor of reversionism.
(I Corinthians 10:19-21; 11:3,13-15) He frustrates the will of God in three areas: the mental will of God (what God wants us to think). (Ephesians 4:14); the geographical will of God (where God wants us to be). (I Thessalonians 2:18); the operational will of God (what God wants us to do) (James 4:7,8) Satan does everything he can to have malfunction in our application of Bible doctrine. He does this through worry, anxiety, mental attitude sins. (I Peter 5:7-9) He destroys the believer’s focus by getting the eyes on people. (Jeremiah 17:5); or he turns you into an arrogant person by getting eyes on self. (I Kings 19:10)
He gets the believer to become involved in some program to improve the devil’s world. Religion is a part of the devil’s strategy. Religion was created by Satan to counterfeit the plan of God. Christianity is not a religion; it is a relationship with God through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But religion, by way of contrast, is man seeking to gain the approbation of God by his own efforts, his plans, his merits, his systems. Religion is the principal representative of the evil genius of Satan.
Satan’s evil genius set up an evil organization of fallen angels called demons. Paul lists these as the rulers, the powers, the world forces of this darkness, the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Rulers are the top officers, the highest and most powerful fallen angels under the command of Satan, and they are the equivalent of the archangels in the elect angel organization. Powers are the commissioned officers in the angelic army. Satan understands the importance of discipline, of authority. His army is highly effective and one reason for it is that they are much better disciplined than most Christians. These officers command the millions and millions of demons in the armies of Satan. World forces means world rulers. It refers to a special corps of demons who might be classified as Satan’s ambassadors. He has these in all of the ruling places of the world. These are special ambassador demons whose job is to influence the world rulers so that Satan can control history. He has never succeeded in doing so but he never stops trying either. (Daniel 10:13-20, one is called the prince of Persia; one is called the prince of Grecia in Daniel 10:20) This demon brings darkness, very thick darkness or gloom by means of religious and moral darkness. The policy and the function of Satan is a policy of darkness or evil. The spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places describes the entire demon army of Satan.