Family Life Series
Reading: Psalm 127:3–5; Ephesians 6:1–3
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’” — Ephesians 6:1–3
Meditation
Scripture never speaks of children as interruptions to the family’s calling; it speaks of them as the calling itself bearing fruit. “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD” (Ps 127:3) — not a project of the parents, but a gift of the covenant God, entrusted for a season and destined for His service. The psalmist pictures them as arrows in a warrior’s hand and as olive shoots around the table (Ps 128:3): young, tender, full of promise, planted close to the trunk.
But children are not only receivers in the household; they have a ministry of their own. When Paul wrote to the churches of Ephesus and Colossae, he addressed the children directly, as members of the congregation with a charge from Christ Himself: “obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Eph 6:1). Their obedience is not mere household order; it is worship. A child who honors father and mother is keeping the first commandment that carries a promise, and is preaching a small, living sermon on what it means to trust an authority one cannot always understand.
Our Lord Himself sanctified this calling. The eternal Son, through whom the worlds were made, went down to Nazareth “and was submissive to them” (Luke 2:51). If obedience to imperfect parents was not beneath the perfect Son, it is not beneath our sons and daughters. In the hidden years of Nazareth, Jesus “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52) — growth that happened at home, under authority, long before any crowd gathered.
There is a quiet dignity here for the covenant child. Samuel ministered before the LORD while still a boy in linen (1 Sam 2:18). Timothy knew the sacred writings “from childhood” (2 Tim 3:15). The kingdom has never waited for children to grow up before giving them work to do: to believe, to obey, to pray, to honor, to learn the catechism, to sing psalms with a full heart. “Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength” (Ps 8:2).
Parents, receive your children as heritage, not property; aim them like arrows, toward Christ. Children, do not despise the smallness of your station. Obedience learned at your father’s table becomes faithfulness offered at the Lord’s.
For Reflection
1. How does viewing children as a “heritage from the LORD” change the way our household speaks to and about them?
2. In what practical ways can the children of the home be led to see their obedience as service rendered to Christ, not merely to parents?
Prayer
Father of the covenant, thank You for the children You have planted like olive shoots around our table. Give them tender hearts to obey in the Lord, and give us patience to teach them Your ways. Let the faith we confess at church be the faith they see at home, until each one calls upon the name of Christ for themselves. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.