(Audio/Video and Text Available)
Title: Children, part one
Intro:
6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Greek Study:
“Obey”
Greek: hypakouō (hoop-ak-oo’-o)
Definition:
to hear under (as a subordinate), i.e. to listen attentively; by implication, to heed or conform to a command or authority:—hearken, be obedient to, obey.
Combination of two Greek Words:
hypo (hoop-o) “Under”
akouō (ak-oo’-o) “Hear”
Practical Definition: In simplest terms, hypakouo means to place yourself under the authority of someone in submission, to heed (listen AND obey) what they say to you.
All or Nothing
The nature of the structure of this compound word, hypakouo, demands that this is an all or nothing scenario.
Under but not Hearing
A Child cannot “submit” themselves to be under a parent’s authority, but then not be obedient. Such submission is for show only, is shallow, and completely disrespects the parent. The proof must be in the pudding, so to speak. It is NOT enough for the child to declare “I will be obedient!” That claim must be demonstrated.
(This type of scenario is pretty straight forward, so I’d like to spend more time talking about the other, more subtle way this all or nothing concept is violated.)
Not Under but Hearing
Likewise, a child also cannot refuse to place themselves under the parent’s authority, but then secretly obey them. This, too is disrespect.
You may ask, well, what does that second option even look like? Imagine a child who is corrected by a parent, and outright says, “No, I will do this my own way!” and then, after a series of failures, decides to do what the parent says and finds success. But in their pride and hubris, they refuse to acknowledge the parent was right to begin with.
This is a sin for at least two reasons:
1. It does not demonstrate true repentance, which involves admitting to the offended parent that they were right.
2. It disrespects the parents authority and wisdom by not giving the parent proper credit.
Examples of what this might look like:
- A teenager who refuses to acknowledge the dating advice of parents, even though the parents are absolutely correct in their assessment.
- A child who says, “Yeah, yeah, I got it! I’ll do it!” but then does not do the job well, and has to re-do the job (study habits for a test, chores that need to be done a certain way (dishwasher emptied and loaded in a certain way, at a certain time of the day, poop patrol BEFORE mowing, lawn stripe protocol, etc.)
- Others?
Are we not God’s Children?
Before we close; a final thought:
Doesn’t this lesson also apply to how we demonstrate our obedience to our heavenly father?
We can neither be a people who give lip service to God: “I submit to you Lord!” and then pick and chose which of His commandments we will follow, and which we will ignore.
If we give our child a list of 5 chores and they perform two, ignore one, and half way do the other three, will we praise them or correct them?
Such it is with our father.
Likewise, we can also not be those that grumble about God’s rightful place in our lives, ignore his authority, then, in the holy spirit’s breaking of our heart (which often comes when we go our own way, fail miserably, and admit to ourselves the best option was obedience to God from the start), do the right thing, but never repent before God for our arrogance, lack of initial obedience, and acknowledgement that HE was right all along.
The greatest inspiration any parent will ever give to his children is the continual demonstration of that parent’s full obedience (Under and Listen) to God the Father.