Ephesians 6:4

Ephesians 6:4

I. The Lord brings up His disciples from the beginning of life.

II. The Lord nourishes and cherishes His disciples; He is not a mere Teacher: He is a Trainer. He helps us to learn, and when our courage sinks He revives it.

III. The Lord exhorts, warns, and restrains. There is nurture and there is admonition in the bringing up of Christ's disciples by their Lord.

IV. The Lord unites with Himself by trust and love those whom He brings up.

V. The Lord's work of bringing up is without intermission; He is always about it.

VI. Let your instruction and your training have the Lord's teaching, the Lord's warnings, the Lord's doctrines, for their means, and the Lord Himself for their end.

S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Sermons,1st series, p. 175.

The Christian Training of Children.

Consider:

I. What is included in, and what is meant by, all our dealings with the young who are growing up among us tending to their discipline: all that we teach them or enjoin on them, or give or deny them. Discipline is by no means synonymous with punishment, though in common conversation we are accustomed often to use it so, but something entirely different. The heart can be disposed to God only by love, which drives out fear, and with fear all the power of punishment. But discipline which aims by steady exercise to control and regulate every emotion and to subdue all the lower instincts of nature under the rule of the higher imparts a salutary knowledge of the power of will, and gives an earnest of liberty and internal order. The larger the place which is given to discipline in our method, the more must punishment lose its effect; because the young mind is already practised, it refuses to have its decisions influenced by considerations either of pleasure or the reverse. It is difficult to keep a clear conscience in this important business. How shall we keep it void of offence? Certainly in no other way than this: we must neither set before ourselves any worldly aim in the training and education of our children, nor teach them to think of anything merely worldly and external as the object to be gained by it; but rather, putting out of view all other results, we must try to have them made distinctly conscious of what powers and capacities they possess which may by-and-by be used in carrying on the work of God on earth, and to have those powers brought under the control of their will by their learning both to overcome indolence and dissipation and to guard against being passionately engrossed in any single object. And this is just what the Apostle means. For instruction and training of all kinds so directed will only serve as discipline to the young, and only by such discipline will they acquire a real possession in the shape of a thorough fitness for every work of God that in the course of their life they may find occasion to do.

II. But however excellent a thing it is to train our children by discipline, what is the highest thing that can be effected by this means? The preparing of the way for the Lord, that He may be able to enter, the adorning of the temple, that He may be able to dwell in it; but towards the actual entering and indwelling of the Lord discipline can contribute nothing. Does not the Lord Himself say that the Spirit moves where He will, and that we cannot so much as know, much less command, where He is to go? Yes, we recognise the truth of that word of Christ in this connection also, and therefore willingly confess our inability. But while acknowledging our helplessness, let us not forget that the same Saviour charged His disciples to go and teach all nations. This then is what we are capable of doing and what we are commanded to do: in our daily intercourse with the young to commend the mighty works of God, that we may stir up in their minds aspirations after a happier condition, and this is what the Apostle calls the admonition of the Lord.

F. Schleiermacher, Selected Sermons,p. 163.

References: Ephesians 6:4. J. H. Thorn, Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ,2nd series, p. 253; J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 65; C. M. Birrell, Ibid.,vol. ii., p. 360; W. Braden, Ibid.,vol. vi., p. 269; R. F. Horton, Ibid.,vol. xxxvi., p. 314.Ephesians 6:5; Ephesians 6:6. J. B. Brown, Ibid.,vol. xii., p. 97; Ibid.,vol. xvii., p. 406; F. W. Farrar, Ibid.,vol. xxxiv., p. 296. Ephesians 6:5. H. W. Beecher, Ibid.,vol. x., p. 4; J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 185.Ephesians 6:5. E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation,vol. ii., p. 427. Ephesians 6:6. S. Gladstone, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxii., p. 280; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 92.Ephesians 6:7. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxv., No. 1484; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iv., pp. 85, 88.