Colossians 3:12-25 - 4:1 (Part 4)
Wives, Husbands, Children,
Fathers…
Today, it is unpopular to tell a woman
to obey her husband. In fact, it is not even popular today to
assume that a wife is even a “her” or a husband a “he”. However, popular or not, the Apostle Paul deals
with the Christian ethic of the traditional ‘He and She’ family. And what is necessary, I think, is to notice
that the husband/father (he) is the one who bears the brunt of the Christian responsibility.
Wives (she) are to obey/submit while a
husband (he) is to love his wife just as Jesus loved the Church. (Ephesians 5 gives more detail to the
marital instructions.)
Right after my wife and I had married
we had a fight. I prayed that God would
show her how she was wrong so it could be quickly resolved. And yes, while I admit that I am the guilty
party in most marital disagreements, this one time I was actually in the
right. So I prayed hard and begged God
to resolve the issue by showing her her fault.
After a while God spoke to me (yeah, He speaks quite clearly at times) and
said “Go apologize to your wife.” I
argued with God and explained to Him why I was actually in the right and
apologizing would be wrong as I was actually the offended party. Again He told me to go apologize. So I crossed my arms like Jonah and refused
to budge. And then again He said to me
that I was to go apologize and love my wife just as Jesus first loved me. Romans 5:8 states that while I was still a
sinner Jesus loved me and died for me. Basically,
Jesus said He was sorry for my sins before I ever knew my sins existed. (i.e. Father, forgive them for they know not
what they are doing.”)
It seems to me that if a husband is actually
loving his wife as Jesus loved him then the wife might not have a problem
obeying/submitting to his leadership in the relationship.
Likewise, children are told to obey
their fathers but the fathers are instructed not to embitter their
children. I think the whole “love as
Jesus loved” is the key to not embittering our children. I suspect children are in part embittered by
the “do as I say, not as I do” type of fathering that happens as examples for
children. Children aren’t dumb; they
seem to pick up on hypocrisy rather quickly.
For converts of our day, this may not
be a new ethic. But in the days of the
Apostle Paul it was a new paradigm in thinking.
In Paul’s day wives were property and children, if not expendable, were
of negligible value. But to the new
Christian (of Paul’s day) who was a husband and father who understood the death
of Jesus for his sins and new life, this new Christian ethic must have been seriously
weird and different.
Husbands and fathers, why don’t we try
this. Let us go and love our families as
sacrificially as Jesus first loved us.
I’m willing to bet that when we do we will see a change for the better
in our family dynamics. So go ahead,
read Colossians 3 again and get a glimpse of a whole new world, the Kingdom of
God on earth as it is in Heaven.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+3%3A22-4%3A1&version=NIV
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