Wives, be subject to [your] husbands, as is fitting in [the] Lord.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
Colossians 3 tells believers to put on compassion, kindness and forgiveness. Then it takes that new life into the home, speaking to wives, husbands, children, fathers and servants. Verse 19 gives the husband a duty to love and a fault to avoid. Why does love need a warning attached to it?
One writer notes that a share in the new creation does not cancel these earthly ties.
This is another section of Colossians. It deals with particular relationships that connect not with the new creation, but with the first creation. All believers have a vital part in the new creation. But that does not free them from the responsibilities of earthly relationships, no matter how much we enjoy the new creation. In fact, such enjoyment should make us all the more diligent and faithful in these temporary relationships.
Verse 18 speaks to wives, verse 19 to husbands. Each gets a different command, and one writer sees a design in that.
God's arrangements are never lop-sided. If there is a word of instruction and guidance for those who have the subject place, there is equally a word for those who take the lead. In each case the Spirit of God puts His finger on the weak spot. The husband is urged to love. Mere natural love can easily turn to bitterness, but this can never happen when his love is a reflection of the divine. If the husband is marked by love the wife has no difficulty in being subject.
Notice also what the husband is not told to do.
They are to love their wives. Let them make no excuse for not doing so! They are not told to enforce their wives' submission, but real love for the wife would encourage her submission... His bitterness will certainly not encourage either her love or her submission to him.
One writer looks at what the word targets: a husband taken up with anxiety, and a temper left unguarded.
The wife needs no urging to love her husband. It is assumed that her affections are all right there. But a husband might well let anxiety and the outward pressure of life so occupy him that he takes too little care of his wife, or too little interest in her worries... The wife necessarily depends on her husband. She leaves father, mother and all, and leans on him in a special way. If he is not watchful, he may fail in thoughtful love and in the attention of every day. He may not guard his temper enough, which seems to be what is meant by being "bitter."
Does a husband who truly loves still need the second half of the verse? One writer answers from experience.
You might think that if the love were secured, there would be no room left for the bitterness. But is it so in the actual experience of life? Many a husband truly loves his wife, and still drops hasty words in moments when he is off guard, out of the presence of God. Such words are as bitter as gall to a tender heart. The aim of the warning seems to be constant self-judgment, so that the husband may avoid anything that might fret or irritate the spirit of his wife.
Bitterness at home is often imported from elsewhere. One writer traces its route, then names the motive Scripture uses instead.
The husband comes home after a day of contact with this evil world. Others may have handled him roughly, or disappointed him, or deceived him. He arrives with a ruffled and soured temper (if he has not kept his Christian balance through grace), and he is prone to forget the divine instruction... The Spirit of God does not tell him, "You ought to love your wife, and if you don't, you are the most inconsistent Christian." Instead, He puts Christ and His love before the husband as the motive power: "as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her."
The command has an old opposite. Under pressure, Adam blamed his wife instead of shielding her.
Husbands are told to love their wives, and not to be bitter against them. This last point stands in contrast to Adam. Love would shelter a wife and take the blame for her, rather than let a bitter spirit lay the blame on her. "She gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate," said Adam. This is the deed of the old man. The new man is renewed after the image of Christ, and He loved the church and gave Himself for it.
- Weak spot. Each partner gets the word aimed at their own failing; the husband's is love, and love turning sour.
- Bitterness defined. Not hatred, but an unguarded temper, fading attention, and hasty words that cut a tender heart.
- Imported. The sourness often starts outside the home, and lands on the person closest.
- Self-judgment. Real love still needs the warning. The damage happens in unwatched moments, away from God's presence.
- Pattern. Adam blamed his wife; Christ gave Himself for the church. The husband's love has one model, and it is the second.
Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing in [the] Lord.
Paul has just described the new life of those raised with Christ. Now he brings that life into the ordinary rooms of a house — to wives, husbands, children, fathers. The word to children is short and sweeping. It raises two questions: how far does "everything" reach, and what makes such obedience pleasing?
This instruction is the last step of a longer argument. One writer traces it back to the wider Christian life:
We come to these special instructions for the family circle through the instructions addressed to the Christian circle. Are we right in the Christian circle? Are we seeking the things above? Are we putting to death the members of the flesh? Have we in practice put off the old man and put on the new, so that the grace, love, and peace of Christ mark us? Then we shall be ready to carry out the family relationships rightly.
The same act can come from two different motives:
The same thing may be done either for self or for Christ. You may, for example, obey your parents to please yourself, or to please Christ. The second is showing godliness at home. The spirit of Christ then shows in all your relationships as a son or daughter, and the whole household can see it.
Colossians states the duty with no qualifying clause:
Here too it is stated in absolute terms. We know that elsewhere there are landmarks to guard us. Clearly neither a father nor a husband has any right to insist on what is contrary to the Lord. But here the apostle assumes agreement. What the Apostle urges is that the children should obey their parents in all things. And how good is obedience!
Ephesians says "obey your parents in the Lord." Colossians says "in everything." Each phrase closes a door the other might leave open:
Only let your obedience be in the Lord, that is, not against His own Word. The obligations connected with our heavenly relationship must always be paramount. So the "in all things" of Colossians is completed in Ephesians by the words "in the Lord." Otherwise the subtle flesh and self-will in the child might use the duty of obedience in its earthly relationship to cover up disobedience to another divine command. And for the same reason, the "in the Lord" of Ephesians has its necessary completing addition in Colossians. Otherwise a child might appeal to its heavenly relationship (under the plea of "conscience," that is, without the Word) to cover disobedience in the earthly one.
The exception is real, but narrow:
Children must be very careful not to plead this exception in doubtful cases. They should be very sure that the parent's command really does oppose the Lord's claims before they dare to refuse obedience... So parents are absolute in their own circle — the circle God has described. But that circle sits inside a larger one, where the Lord Himself is supreme.
Ephesians and Colossians give different reasons for the same duty:
Here the principle is unhesitating submission to the authority of parents. That authority is of God, and such obedience is to be recognised as well pleasing in the Lord. Ephesians brings forward the righteousness of the obedience; here it is its moral beauty and good pleasure.
The verse's last phrase has been read two ways, and one reading reaches further:
"Well pleasing to the Lord" would point us simply to the Lord as the One who accepts this obedience. "Well pleasing in the Lord" goes a great deal farther. The Christian is conscious of the Lord's love now, and of His interest in all his ways and trials day by day.
Such obedience had one perfect model:
Walking in obedience, children would show something of the beautiful character of Christ. In the days of His flesh He was "subject" to His parents (Luke 2:51).
Real obedience is also prompt:
Postponed obedience is often disobedience in one of its worst forms, and it shows both insubjection and self-will. As soon as the command is given, the obligation is binding. Every moment of delay (unless the parent allows it) asserts and prolongs opposition to his authority.
How much God values obedience shows in how Scripture treats disobedience:
The apostle also brands disobedience to parents as one of the characteristic signs of the perilous times of the last days (2 Tim. 3:1-2), and of great moral corruption (Rom. 1:30). Even a slight acquaintance with life shows this plainly: the first step in a downward career has often begun with disobedience to parents.
- Source. Right living in the wider Christian circle prepares a person for life at home. The home is where the new life shows first.
- Scope. Colossians states the duty absolutely — "in everything" — with no limiting clause attached.
- Safeguard. Ephesians adds "in the Lord" as the one boundary. Together the two phrases block self-willed disobedience and false appeals to conscience.
- Standard. Ephesians calls such obedience right. Colossians calls it well pleasing — a beauty seen in Christ, who was subject to His parents.
- Stakes. Obedience delayed is already disobedience, and Scripture traces many ruined lives back to that first refusal at home.
Fathers, do not vex your children, to the end that they be not disheartened.
Colossians 3:21 is one short sentence for fathers, and it follows the command for children to obey their parents in everything. It asks everyone with authority at home a searching question: what is my way of ruling doing to my child's spirit?
God's instructions to wives, husbands, children and fathers are part of the Christian faith, not an add-on to it.
Verses 18 to 21 give practical instructions about the natural relationships God has set up: wives, husbands, children, and fathers. Christianity brings us into relationships higher than the relationships of earth. But it does not set aside the natural relationships while we are still in the body. God set them up, the Lord approved them, and the Christian is to respect them.
One writer weighs the words in the original Greek, and finds that the short line points to what God Himself is like toward His children.
This is only one line in my Greek Testament, but how much that one line holds! "Fathers, do not stir up your children, so that they may not be disheartened." The word for stir up (or provoke) also appears in 2 Cor. 9:2, and nowhere else in the New Testament. God our Father is the God of all Encouragement, and we are not to do anything that will dishearten, or discourage, our children. Our character towards them is to be the same as our Father's character towards us: Encouragement.
The harm this warning guards against touches more than one side of a child.
What a word for the "Fathers" this is! How many sides of the child's character it touches! There is the danger of his losing heart. There is losing courage too. And there is the stirring up of the child's temper, and of that will of his that is so hard to control.
Provoking a child seldom looks dramatic. It hides in a manner, a level of demand, or a refusal to let a growing child grow.
This is an important instruction to fathers. We can provoke our children by sinful behaviour, when we want to show that we are the master of the house. We can provoke them by demanding far too much of them. And we can provoke them if we do not give them more freedom when they grow up and need to live a life of their own.
The verse does not remove a father's authority. It limits how he uses it.
So with the fathers, they are not to provoke or vex their children. Discipline is necessary and good. But if love does not control it, discipline can go too far and become irritating, and leave the child completely discouraged.
Christ Himself shows how to correct someone and still keep their love.
Fathers must be careful not to use their authority just as they please. Unjust punishment drives away the child's love. Needless fault-finding disheartens the child. Fathers are to show that perfect wisdom of Christ, who knew how to correct His disciples and keep their love (Luke 22:24-30).
Children sense the spirit behind correction long before they can explain it. That spirit decides whether the correction works at all.
Children's eyes see fast, and their young hearts feel deeply. Even while being corrected, they sense whether love, or anger and temper in the parent, is applying the rod. In the second case, the corrective instrument will do anything but correct. Wrath provokes wrath. Then every stroke of the rod will drive the precious child further and further away. It will turn his poor heart away from the parent, instead of drawing him nearer to you.
The damage comes fast, and it can wipe out slow, patient work.
"Lest they should be discouraged." How easy it is to discourage children, and especially to discourage them from the right ways of the Lord. They have keen and tender feelings. They observe fast and spot inconsistency at once. So harsh government can very soon undo years of patient teaching, and spoil the most careful efforts to bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
The command to children and the command to fathers belong together. Neither one cancels the other.
It is written, "Children, obey your parents in everything." And with beautiful balancing power it is also written, "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged." … In short, the child must be taught to obey. But the obedient child must be allowed to breathe an atmosphere of tenderness, and to walk up and down in the sunshine of parental affection. This is the spirit of Christian education.
- Authority. Fathers hold real authority in the home. This verse governs how they use it, not whether they have it.
- Encouragement. God our Father is the God of all encouragement. A father's character toward his children should copy His character toward us.
- Provoking. It shows up as lording it over the house, demanding too much, or refusing a growing child more freedom.
- Love. Discipline is necessary and good. But discipline without love turns harsh, and the child feels which hand holds the rod.
- Heart. Harsh rule can undo years of patient teaching. The obedient child still needs the warmth of a father's affection.