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Series Code: IIWSS
Program Code: IIWSS023036S
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00:13 (music ends) 00:16 >>Welcome to "Sabbath School," 00:17 brought to you by It Is Written. 00:20 We're glad that you could join us again this week 00:21 as we continue our journey through the book of Ephesians. 00:25 This week we are on lesson number 11, 00:28 getting close to the end, 00:30 "Practicing Supreme Loyalty to Christ." 00:33 So we're gonna delve into some interesting verses today, 00:36 not a long passage but a very important one. 00:39 Let's begin with prayer. 00:41 Father, we ask that You'll be with us 00:43 and guide our study in this chapter 00:45 of the book of Ephesians today. We ask that You'll bless us 00:49 and help us to understand some significant relationships 00:52 better than we did before. 00:55 We ask that You'll bless our time, 00:56 and we thank You in Jesus' name. Amen. 01:00 Well, we're happy to be back again 01:01 with the author of this quarter's Sabbath school lesson, 01:04 Dr. John McVay. 01:05 He's the president of Walla Walla University. 01:08 John, welcome back. 01:09 >>Glad to be at the table, back at the table with you, Eric. 01:12 >>Back at the table. 01:13 And this week, it's not a long passage. 01:16 >>No, it's nine whole verses. 01:17 >>Nine whole verses-- >>Mm-hmm, it is. 01:19 >>...and yet a significant nine verses. 01:22 >>Significant for a variety of reasons, 01:25 the last part of this has to do with the relationships 01:29 between slave masters and slaves 01:32 or slaves and slave masters, 01:34 and that's a challenging issue to think through. 01:37 >>So this has the potential to be very, very interesting. 01:40 >>It does. >>Well, why don't we begin 01:42 by reading just a few of the verses here 01:46 and then starting to unpack and see 01:48 what some of these themes are? >>Sure. 01:50 >>We're looking at Ephesians, chapter 6, 01:52 and we're looking together at verses 1-9. 01:55 And Paul begins with these words; 01:57 he says, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, 02:01 for this is right." 02:02 Then he quotes one of the commandments: 02:04 "'Honor your father and mother,' 02:06 "which is the first commandment with promise: 02:08 "'that it may be well with you 02:10 and you may live long on the earth.'" 02:14 So if we wanted to summarize this week's lesson, 02:19 these nine whole verses, how might we summarize it? 02:23 And then I want to start digging 02:25 into this relationship or this element, 02:29 this aspect that Paul talks about here with children. 02:32 What was it like to be a child in the first century? 02:35 And what would Paul have expected his readers to understand 02:39 living in that day that maybe we're not getting today? 02:42 So what's the general thrust of this section? 02:45 And then what about children? 02:47 >>Wow. The general thrust in the case of children 02:50 is what you would expect. It's, 02:52 Paul's advice to children is, "Obey your parents." (laughs) 02:56 There's a biblical mandate to do so, 02:59 and God will bless you 03:01 through your obedience to your parents. 03:04 In the case of slaves, of course, 03:06 it gets nuanced toward that relationship, 03:10 and slaves are, as you can see in verse five, are to obey. 03:16 Children are to obey. 03:17 Slaves are to obey their earthly masters. 03:22 But throughout the few verses there on slavery, 03:26 starting with slaves themselves 03:27 and moving briefly to the slave owners, 03:30 Paul has some advanced ideas 03:33 that he's wishing to share with them. 03:35 And he's trying to, as we suggested in an earlier segment, 03:39 fill in, infill the husks 03:42 of the first century relationships, 03:43 including the one between slaves and slave masters, 03:47 with the values of the gospel. 03:49 And so he sows the seed of real transformation here 03:54 in pondering how the values of the gospel 03:57 actually inform these relationships. 04:00 >>All right, so that gives us an overview of this section. 04:03 What about children? What would that have been like 04:06 back in Paul's day? >>Well, with a little bit 04:08 of a reading and study, 04:09 we can begin to figure out the contours 04:12 of what it meant to be a child back in that time. 04:16 And part of it 04:18 is that it's a very different society 04:21 than some of the societies that people live in today. 04:25 This is not an advanced place. It's a sophisticated city, 04:29 Ephesus is a sophisticated place, and yet it has 04:33 a kind of 97% to 3% split, 04:38 judging from the remains and documents that are left behind. 04:43 So 3% live pretty well off. 04:47 When you go to Ephesus, Eric-- 04:50 I don't think you've been there yet. 04:51 >>Not yet, it's on my to-do list. 04:53 >>We need to get you there. 04:54 At least it needs to be on your bucket list 04:56 for the time being. >>That's right. 04:57 >>But when you go there, 04:59 in recent years they're excavating something 05:03 called the terrace houses. 05:04 And these are homes that are on a hillside there, 05:08 at least last time I was there, 05:09 were covered with some protection, 05:12 and you go in under the cover, and you look at these places, 05:15 and these are quite large 05:18 very beautiful, well-decorated homes 05:22 with all of the aura of wealth about them. 05:26 But that kind of thing is 3% of the population; 05:29 97% of the population lived just at 05:33 or mostly below the level of sustenance, 05:36 what we might call the poverty line. 05:39 And so that 97%, 05:42 those people in the 97%, 05:45 lived very different lives. 05:46 And some of the features about the first century 05:48 that are traumatic, from a child's point of view, 05:51 is that infant mortality was very high. 05:57 And then the child death rates were extreme, too. 06:01 It was somewhat unusual 06:03 to live beyond 5 years of age and so on. 06:06 So, the children felt, I'm sure, 06:11 at risk. Life was tenuous. 06:15 And when you add some of the customs of the age to that, 06:20 it becomes really challenging. 06:23 A father had the legal right to expose a newborn. 06:28 And children are expensive, 06:29 and they often exercised that right, 06:32 especially if it was a female child. 06:35 And they would expose them to the elements, 06:40 and the infant would either die out in the open 06:43 or be adopted by someone, usually a slave trader, 06:47 who would raise that child 06:48 until a point when they could be sold. 06:51 So that's a fairly grim context 06:55 for being a child, and it was a daunting assignment 06:59 to be a child in ancient Ephesus and any ancient city. 07:03 >>So not exactly something 07:05 that you would desire for yourself. 07:07 I mean, everybody gets to be a child at some point, 07:09 but if we could choose a time period in which to be a child 07:13 and a place in which to be a child, it doesn't sound like 07:15 this would be a preferred time or place. 07:18 >>No, and of course a significant portion of the population 07:21 would be slaves, 07:22 and slave children were especially vulnerable 07:25 because adding to all those other things, 07:27 which they would've had 07:28 more than a lion's share of the risk in, 07:31 they also faced the threat that their owner, 07:34 the owner, so-called owner, could sell them at any time. 07:38 They could be separated from their nuclear family and so on. 07:41 And that's, again, really, really tough 07:44 set of societal circumstances 07:47 and context for children in the time. 07:51 >>And with that context, Paul kind of, 07:53 he talks about the responsibilities here 07:56 of parents to children. >>Yes, he does. 07:58 >>Maybe there's a little bit of hope 08:00 in the biblical perspective on these things. 08:03 >>Yeah, so in verse 4, 08:05 when he turns from talking to children 08:07 and he turns to fathers, 08:09 now he actually refers to parents, 08:11 which would include mother and father in verse 1, 08:14 but the second half is addressed only to fathers. 08:17 And it's interesting how he begins: 08:20 "Do not provoke your children to anger"-- 08:23 which is suggestive that that was probably 08:27 what some Christian fathers were doing. 08:29 They were provoking their sons or their daughters to anger. 08:33 And Paul says, "Don't do that. Don't do that." 08:39 Fathers had unbridled, unbounded authority. 08:43 They could do most anything they wanted 08:45 with their own child. 08:47 Now, in Paul's day, 08:49 those prerogatives were being bounded 08:53 a bit by public opinion, 08:55 but still in terms of their legal rights and so on, 08:58 they could pretty much do what they wished 09:00 with their son or their daughter. 09:03 And Paul is, again, trying to restrict 09:06 this patriarchal authority and bound it. 09:10 "Don't provoke your children to anger." 09:13 And the alternative that he gives is to "bring them up 09:17 in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." 09:20 Now, "Lord" in Ephesians 09:23 seems to always refer to the Lord Jesus, so this is Jesus. 09:27 So, "Bring them up in the [fear] 09:30 and instruction of the Lord." 09:32 So is this the instruction that comes from the Lord, 09:36 from the Lord Jesus? 09:38 They're to train them up, to raise them in Christian faith. 09:42 The most significant overarching figure 09:45 in these relationships is the Lord, is Jesus. 09:50 >>And it speaks here of raising them up or bringing them up 09:53 "in the training and [the] admonition of the Lord." 09:57 You used a moment ago the word "fear," 09:59 but I'm sensing that "fear" is more of 10:02 a reverence of the Lord rather than what we 10:07 typically today consider fear. >>Sure, yeah. 10:09 Yeah, we can, we sometimes translate that term, "awe." 10:11 >>Yes, yeah, I think "awe" is a much better 10:15 or more easily understood word for us. 10:18 In verse 5, we make a transition here 10:21 from the relationship between fathers and children 10:24 or parents and children 10:25 to bondservants. >>Mm-hmm. Sure. 10:27 >>What do we see happening now 10:29 as Paul makes this transition? >>Yep. 10:32 Some of the translations do use the term "bondservants." 10:36 If you look at this issue closely, 10:39 this is the standard word for "slave." 10:41 It's just "douloi"--slaves-- 10:45 and it's probably better to stick with that. 10:48 Some of the translation teams use "bondservants." 10:52 The ESV, when it came out, had "slaves," 10:56 and now they've switched to "bondservants," 10:58 and they do that in attempt 10:59 to think about a specific set of servants, house slaves. 11:03 House slaves could be treated relatively well, 11:07 and so some argue that the term "bondservants" 11:12 is more accurate in that context than "slaves." 11:15 However, if you look at the whole arena 11:18 of slaves and slavery in the Greco-Roman world 11:22 and in a city like Ephesus and so on, 11:24 it had a lot of very, very grim realities to it. 11:29 Even if they could save up, 11:31 as slaves could actually own things-- 11:34 there's records of slaves owning other slaves, 11:36 oddly enough-- 11:39 if they could save up the wherewithal, the finances, 11:43 perhaps placing it in trust 11:46 at Artemis' Temple, 11:49 which was also a banking center, 11:51 they'd save their money up, they'd keep it there, 11:53 and finally they'd get the amount of money 11:56 that they needed to buy their freedom 11:57 so that they could be manumitted, or freed, from slavery. 12:02 Now, most of us, when we think about that process, think, 12:04 "Hooray! It's done. They've won their freedom. 12:08 Now they're free people." 12:10 But it's a little different than that 12:12 in the first century context. 12:13 First of all, for men and women, 12:17 the life expectancy was very short, 12:21 about 40 for men, about 30 for women. 12:24 And most manumissions occurred 12:27 about the time someone was 30. And that sounds like, 12:29 "Well, they've got lots of life left," 12:31 but not in that context. That's kind of end-of-life stuff. 12:35 The other thing is, 12:36 is even if they were manumitted, they didn't gain freedom 12:40 as you and I understand freedom to be. 12:42 They become a freed person, 12:46 which is an interesting status, a freedman, 12:50 which isn't quite a slave, 12:52 but it's a long way from being free. 12:54 The slave owner actually had the right 12:56 to continue to ask them to do certain things. 12:59 They still had a relationship of obedience 13:02 to the former slave master. 13:04 And if the slave master wished, 13:06 he could simply cancel the manumission 13:09 and recall the slave into service. 13:12 So, you know, it's a complex, difficult setting. 13:16 >>That's not exactly what you and I 13:18 might consider to be free, 13:20 as it were. >>No, and all of this 13:23 that we're talking about here, 13:24 in terms of the first century context, Eric, 13:26 makes us a little nervous about some of the uses 13:30 we make of this set of passages. 13:33 We, as Christian believers reading our Bibles, 13:36 tend to read the part 13:38 about wives and husbands 13:42 and the part about children and parents 13:44 and read it quite straightforwardly 13:47 as applying today just as it did back then. 13:51 But part of what we have to remember 13:53 is we have to develop a way of interpreting 13:56 the whole set of rules of the Christian household. 13:59 And we can't treat one part one way 14:01 and then the part about slavery a different way, 14:04 especially when the autocratic powers 14:08 that were accorded to the husband, father, and slave master 14:13 colored these other relationships as well. 14:16 The slave master who was a father 14:19 could have almost a slave-like relationship 14:23 with his children, 14:24 could dominate his wife in a similar fashion. 14:27 And so we have to be very careful 14:29 that we tease out Paul's efforts 14:33 to breathe life and grace and hope into these relationships. 14:38 >>And that's what we're going to be doing 14:39 in the second half of our program today, 14:42 digging more deeply into the relationship 14:44 between parents and children and also slaves. 14:47 So this is an interesting subject this week. 14:50 I wanna encourage you: Make sure that you pick up 14:53 the companion book to this quarter's Sabbath school lesson. 14:55 If you want to understand a little bit more deeply 14:58 these relationships that we're talking about today, 15:01 this is the resource that you need. 15:03 You wanna pick this up at itiswritten.shop, 15:06 itiswritten.shop. 15:08 It's the companion book 15:09 to this quarter's Sabbath school lesson on Ephesians 15:12 by John McVay. 15:13 We are going to be coming back in just a moment 15:16 as we continue looking at this very interesting subject. 15:19 We'll be right back. 15:20 (uplifting music swells and ends) 15:24 >>[John Bradshaw] "I know your works and where you dwell." 15:28 These are some of Christ's first words 15:30 to the ancient church of Pergamos. 15:32 (suspenseful music) 15:34 Pergamos was filled with pagan temples, 15:36 one of which was dedicated to a god 15:38 whose symbol was a serpent. 15:41 So what did Jesus have to say 15:42 to early Christians in Pergamos? 15:45 "You hold fast to my name, and did not deny my faith, 15:49 "even in the days in which 15:50 "Antipas was my faithful martyr.... 15:53 But I have a few things against you." 15:57 What pitfalls could a church 15:58 that had been so recently delivered from persecution 16:01 stumble into? 16:03 And what does Christ promise to those who overcome? 16:07 Find out by watching 16:08 "The Seven Churches of Revelation: Pergamos" 16:12 and learn how you can be among the overcomers. 16:15 "The Seven Churches of Revelation: Pergamos," 16:18 brought to you by It Is Written TV. 16:22 (music ends) 16:24 Thank you for remembering 16:25 that It Is Written exists 16:26 because of the kindness of people just like you. 16:29 To support this international life-changing ministry, 16:32 please call us now at 800-253-3000. 16:37 You can send your tax-deductible gift 16:38 to the address on your screen, 16:40 or you can visit us online at itiswritten.com. 16:43 Thank you for your prayers and for your financial support. 16:46 Our number again is 800-253-3000, 16:51 or you could visit us online at itiswritten.com. 16:54 (uplifting theme music) 16:58 >>[Eric Flickinger] Welcome back to "Sabbath School," 17:00 brought to you by It Is Written. 17:02 We're continuing looking at 17:03 "Practicing Supreme Loyalty to Christ" this week. 17:07 This is lesson number 11. 17:09 We're talking about children and parents, slaves and owners. 17:14 John, I wanna come back to something. 17:15 We've been talking about slaves, 17:16 but I wanna bring us back to something here 17:18 for just a moment and then back to slaves again 17:20 because it is rather interesting. 17:22 But when we talk about relationships 17:25 between parents and children, 17:28 Paul is doing a masterful job in this book 17:31 of helping us to see the relationship that 17:33 we need to have with Christ. >>Mm-hmm. 17:35 >>What do we learn about relationships 17:38 based on what he's talking about here 17:40 between parents and children 17:41 and how we ought to have a relationship with Jesus? 17:44 >>You know, I think the simple, 17:47 straightforward instructions that Paul gives 17:49 harbor some profound, a profound principle. 17:54 So, Paul says to children, 17:56 "Children, obey your parents." 17:59 And you might have expected full stop, period. 18:02 But he says "in the Lord," again signaling, 18:07 much as we saw in Paul's counsel 18:11 to Christian wives, the relationship with your parents 18:16 is crucial and important if you're a child, 18:18 and you need to honor and respect and obey them. 18:21 But that's to be done in the Lord. 18:24 In other words, there is a relationship 18:27 that is yet higher on the scale, 18:31 and that's the child's relationship with the Lord. 18:36 And what I see Paul doing 18:39 in that little phrase, "in the Lord," 18:40 is drawing these children in, as themselves believers, 18:45 honoring their relationship with the Lord, 18:50 cultivating that relationship, respecting it, 18:52 respecting them as members of the church community. 18:57 And we don't know precisely what the ages 19:00 of the group is that Paul's referring to. 19:03 The term "child" could stretch over some time, 19:08 even until the father's death, you know? 19:10 So if you had a long-lived father, 19:12 you could be a child for a while. 19:15 In this context, because of Paul's remarks 19:17 about the instruction that is needed to them, 19:20 these are younger children 19:21 who need careful instruction and teaching, 19:26 so they're probably children 19:26 much as we would think of today. 19:29 And yet Paul kind of draws them into the circle 19:32 of respected members of the Christian family 19:36 and honors their relationship with the Lord. 19:39 And I think that that's wondrous and that's tender, 19:43 and it reminds me of a narrative in the Old Testament 19:45 that I see a similar thing happening. 19:48 First Samuel, chapter 3, verses 1-21, 19:52 you'll remember the story of Samuel as a lad, 19:57 as a boy in the tent, 20:01 in the tabernacle, right? 20:02 In the worship space that they had at that point. 20:07 And he's serving under a priest named Eli, right? 20:12 And one night, Samuel is awakened 20:15 by his name being called, 20:17 and he rushes to Eli and he says, "I'm here. You called me." 20:22 You remember the story? >>Yes. 20:24 >>And this happens repeatedly. 20:26 And finally, Eli gets it. 20:30 Finally, Eli gets it: "Then Eli perceived"-- 20:35 1 Samuel, chapter 3, verse 8-- 20:39 "Then Eli perceived that the Lord"-- 20:41 and you'll notice that's in small caps, 20:44 it's all in capital letters, so it's Yahweh. 20:47 So Eli comes to the realization 20:51 that Yahweh is calling the boy. 20:56 Now, it's curious because Eli 20:58 is serving in the tabernacle, in the tent. 21:02 He's serving there. 21:04 It's says in verse 1, "Samuel was ministering to the Lord 21:08 in the presence of Eli." 21:11 And it also says that "Samuel was lying down 21:14 in the temple of the Lord"--verse 3. 21:15 So, he knows about the Lord, 21:19 but it gives us the sense here 21:21 that he did not yet know the Lord. 21:25 And yet the Lord speaks to him. 21:27 And there comes that holy moment when Eli perceives 21:32 Yahweh is calling the boy. 21:35 And Eli acts on that and honors that and respects that, 21:39 even when God eventually connects with Samuel, 21:44 shares a judgment message on Eli and his house, 21:48 and Samuel shares that message with Eli. 21:51 And Eli says, "It is the Lord. 21:54 Let Him do what seems good to Him." 21:56 This is a story about someone, Eli in this case, 22:01 who comes to recognize that moment 22:04 when Yahweh speaks to a boy. 22:07 And it strikes me that particularly those of us 22:09 working with children and young adults and so on, 22:12 we ought to be attentive to the relationship 22:17 between God and that young person or that child. 22:21 We ought to be ever watchful for that moment 22:24 when Yahweh speaks to that one. That's a sacred moment. 22:28 We ought to honor it and respect it, 22:30 much as Paul suggests in Ephesians 22:32 and as is reflected in the story of Samuel and Eli. 22:36 >>So Paul talks about that relationship, 22:38 and we almost wish that he had spent more verses 22:42 talking about that. >>Yes, yes. 22:44 >>But he does make some profound observations 22:47 and give some great counsel in those few verses. 22:49 But then as we've mentioned before, 22:51 he talks about these bondservants, or slaves, as it were. 22:56 What kind of advice, what kind of counsel 23:00 does Paul give to slave masters? 23:03 And again, how do we take that from the first century 23:07 and bring it down here-- >>Sure. 23:08 >>...much further down the line? 23:11 >>So here would be my summary of what he says to slaves. 23:14 And he says it to them over and over again in various ways. 23:20 He says to them, make a grand substitution. 23:25 Substitute Christ for your slave master. 23:30 Serve your real master, Christ. 23:35 In a sense, he says, forget about the master in the flesh. 23:40 Put Jesus in that place and serve Him with full heart 23:45 and do great work. 23:47 But it doesn't have to be directed to the slave master, 23:51 the earthly slave master. 23:53 Direct it to Jesus. Make a great substitution. 23:56 Put Jesus in the place of your slave master. 24:00 Fascinating strategy, isn't it, 24:02 for working in this environment 24:05 and infusing these difficult, challenging, 24:09 what from our perspective we would certainly call 24:12 immoral relationships, someone owning another one. 24:16 He's trying to infill the husks of those relationships 24:19 with the values of the gospel. 24:21 >>There are certainly slaves today. 24:23 Many of us may not interact with them on a daily basis 24:28 or at least recognize that we are, 24:30 but there are employer-employee relationships. 24:33 >>Yes. >>Do we take those 24:35 and just kind of bring the same concepts over? 24:38 How does that all work? 24:40 >>Well, I think there's some danger in doing so, 24:43 or maybe I would say we have to be very careful in doing so 24:46 because as Christians, 24:49 we have a long history with these words about slavery, 24:54 and we want to be careful. 24:57 There's a whole history of Christians 25:01 being engaged in helping to create 25:04 a better atmosphere for employees or workers 25:07 to do their work, 25:08 to have rights and work days of a reasonable length 25:13 and all the rest, child labor laws, and so on. 25:18 Most all of that stream of legislation 25:22 and societal change 25:24 is rooted in people who believed in God 25:28 and believed in the immorality of slavery and so on. 25:33 So we wanna be careful, then, that we honor that history 25:37 and that we don't just port over these words 25:40 about slaves and slave masters into our time, 25:43 and potentially port over some assumptions 25:47 about employers and how they can behave 25:50 that Paul would not really have agreed with in his time, 25:54 and given this stream of 25:57 legislative societal work based on Christian principles 26:01 we would certainly not agree with. 26:03 So you have to be a little bit careful about it. 26:05 But having said that, 26:07 I think there's something to be heard here. 26:10 We all probably have some nagging, egotistical, 26:13 overbearing people in our lives. 26:15 And I think Paul's good counsel to these slaves, 26:19 substitute Jesus for the slave master, 26:22 probably fits in those contexts. 26:25 In other words, you put Jesus in that place 26:28 and do what you need to do for Jesus 26:30 and see how that impacts that egotistical, overbearing, 26:35 dominating person in your life. 26:37 >>It sounds like Paul has good advice 26:39 not just for first century folk 26:41 but for us today as well. 26:42 >>I think it does take us a little extra work 26:44 with passages like these, 26:47 but it's there; the truth is there. 26:50 The word for our time is there. 26:52 >>Absolutely. 26:53 And we trust that you have been blessed 26:55 by our study this week as well. 26:58 We've looked at the relationship 27:00 between parents and children, 27:02 we've looked at the relationships 27:03 between slaves and masters, 27:06 and ultimately, what we're looking at 27:07 is the relationship that Jesus wants to have 27:10 with each and every one of us. 27:13 And that only comes to pass 27:14 as we choose to have that relationship with Him. 27:17 He wants to have it with us, but we have to choose 27:20 to have that relationship with Him as well. 27:23 And as we continue looking at the book of Ephesians, 27:25 we will continue to see how we can have that relationship 27:29 by the choices that we make, 27:31 and that all comes from a better understanding 27:33 of Christ and His character. 27:37 We're looking at the book of Ephesians this quarter, 27:39 Paul's incredible story-letter 27:42 to help us understand the Lord better. 27:45 God bless you, have a wonderful week, 27:46 and we'll look forward to seeing you again 27:48 next time on "Sabbath School," 27:49 brought to you by It Is Written. 27:52 (uplifting theme music) 28:26 (music ends) |
Revised 2023-08-30