Latest / Messiah in Life / Ephesians Part 12

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Ephesians Part 12 · Messiah in Life

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Messiah in Life podcast, hosted by Bishop Justin D.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Elwell of Restoration Fellowship International and Messiah Congregation, recorded at our congregational home in Washington Mills, New York.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: In this study through Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, we invite you to rediscover the beauty of God's covenant purposes revealed in Messiah Jesus.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Together, we will explore the theological and covenantal foundations of Paul's letter.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Its call to unity, holiness, redemption, and covenant identity for both Jew and Gentile in Messiah.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is more than a theological study.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: It is an invitation to see the story of Scripture as one unified testimony of the Lord's faithfulness from Israel to the nations, all brought together in Messiah.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us as we seek to live Messiah in everyday life.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And now to Bishop Justin.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Ephesians chapter 6.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: We'll read verses 1 through 4.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: But Lord willing we'll get through.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Let me adjust my mic here.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Lord willing, we'll get through verse 9.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: So first we'll deal with children and parents.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Ephesians chapter 6, verse 1.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Children, obey your parents in the Lord.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: For this is right.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Honor your father and mother.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is God's word.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: So as we look back to the very beginning of Paul's letter, the first three chapters we said were more theological.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: What has the Lord done through Messiah?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 4, he pivots where he begins to talk about obviously how we are matured, walking worthy of the calling that we've been for which we've been called.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: The gift ministries, we talked about the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher, and the the purpose of the gift ministries.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: From the gift ministries, uh the purpose of that is to mature the body for the work of the gospel, for the work of ministry.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because we are to be a kingdom of priests.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And just as Israel is a kingdom of priests, but they also had priests.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So priests had priests, ministers have ministers.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that helps in the maturity of the body so that the body can continue to do the work for which we were called, which of course is the gospel, the message of the gospel.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So then it becomes very personal as we look at chapter 5, chapter 6.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: How do we live together as the body?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then even more so, as we looked at chapter, the latter part of chapter 5, beginning in verse 22, the interpersonal relationship between husband and wife, the relationship between children and parents, masters and servants, and so on.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: So he goes even into the house.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: He leaves the synagogue, we might say, the congregation, and he directs us into the home front.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: What does the gospel look like inside the home?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure, I don't recall if I live streamed it or taught it, uh, chapter 5, 22 through 33.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: But addressing the relationship between husbands and wives, the dynamic of that, what does that look like?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: What is Paul um saying?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: What is the expectation for those who are called and those who are born again?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: How does the gospel change us?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: How does the gospel change us as individuals?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: How does it change us within our relationship, our marital relationship and relationship with our children?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we went through that, I think, fairly um exhaustively.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps not as exhaustive.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think my my notes were something like 12 pages.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, we did do it here, I recall.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think yeah, my notes were 10 or 12 pages on that.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh just that, uh, those 10 verses, 11 verses.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So now we transition to children.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: So Paul is again, he's talking about, he's making reference indirectly to household codes, household codes of the Roman era.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you um administrate the household?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: So Paul, but Paul does not just baptize the Roman system.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say, okay, we're gonna take this existing thing you're familiar with, and now we're gonna baptize it and make it Christian, and you just follow what you did before, but now just say in Jesus' name at the end of it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, he completely transforms it and removes in many uh respects the cultural or societal social um apparatus that had been so familiar to them.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So he speaks of beginning with parents and children.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing here is he said, obey your parents, which isn't just the dad.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: So obey your parents.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: So be respectful, be obedient to your parents.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna look at that in just a moment.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: So family relationships, of course, at the time, you know, you had the structures that were expected, that were accepted as well.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And now he is he is giving us what the gospel looks like within that culture and giving it um definition according to the gospel.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: How do we reorient family according to the gospel?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: But he does something again remarkable, as I as I've said.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't simply reduce the values of or reproduce the values of the surrounding Roman world, he brings everything under the lordship of Messiah.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone is brought under the lordship of Christ.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: So children belong to Messiah, parents are accountable to Messiah, servants belong to Messiah, masters are accountable to Messiah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he dignifies.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things we have to recognize in this chapter, in chapter five, when he writes to husbands and wives, when he writes to children, when he writes to masters and servants, he's dignifying them.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because you you really only wrote to people who you had reason to write to, who had position for you to write to them, purpose for them.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he is dignifying them, and he's also giving them not only dignity but responsibility.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: So they have a responsibility to respond to what they're hearing, what they're being taught.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that gives them uh that makes them accountable.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: And accountable to whom?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Accountable before the Lord, obviously, but also accountable to each other in this relationship, godly relationship.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we have the in the Lord phrase that is repeated here that is very critical.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the household is no longer governed according to the societal norms of Rome, it now stands beneath a much higher Lord, and that is Messiah himself.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: So children obey your parents.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: When we look at this, obviously Paul is quoting the fifth commandment, uh Kavadchavaitcha, that you would honor, give respect to, that kavod is glory, is is honor, is respect, it's dignity to respect them, to honor them.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says it's the first commandment with promise, that things will go well for you in the land.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a promise and expectation that how you are um honoring those who have given you life, those who have given you comfort, and so on.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: It is uh it's recognizing how you should be raised, should have been raised, the the covenant context that you are raised.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: If you think of Deuteronomy chapter six, uh we have the Shema, obviously, six verse four.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: But then we have the we only say the usually in most weeks, the beginning of what's called the Vayah, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: But then, of course, we see that parents are um obligated to teach the children, to to um help form them.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's uh it's the process of discipleship and formation that in the home.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: So the home is the home is the place where you are first formed in faith.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: We don't put that responsibility on the church or the synagogue, it is in the home.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And in first century context, if we think about, and even today, um, one of the reasons, and and there's there are many, but one of the reasons why the Pharisees introduced the idea of educating women.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we like to put Pharisees up and say, don't be a Pharisee.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Pharisees did contribute a lot of really good things in their thinking.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: It just wasn't all negative.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea of educating women, making women, allowing women to learn how to read, learn how to write, uh, learn the text, the sacred text, and so on, was that they were the first teachers of the children.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: So in a traditional Jewish household, the mom typically is the one that teaches the child um the Shmah first, the hero Israel.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: So the central proclamation of faith isn't generally taught by the father or the rabbi or the leader, it's taught by the mom in the crib, the mom in the bed.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that formation in the family is how you learn the covenant responsibility for who you are in life, where you're called to, and it gives you that formation that you need in order to continue with the next generation.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: So when you are mature and you have a home, you're passing that on down the line.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: So this is the first commandment.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: The fifth commandment is the first with the promise, the first, but it's not the only one with that specific promise.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: We think of uh, I think it's Deuteronomy 22 with the bird's nest, 21 or 22.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: The bird's nest has very similar language.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the the idea that the rabbis form with this is that this great commandment of honoring your father and your mother, that you would do well on the in the inheritance, goes even to a tiny insignificant commandment that you cannot completely destroy the bird's nest.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if you take the mother, you leave the babies, or you don't take all the babies, you leave some of the babies.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of um I, you know, instruction regarding that.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then it says that it will go well with you in the land.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: So the great commandment of honoring your father and your mother is connected in that same way of blessing and prosperity with something that seems so minor.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, who cares about a bird's nest?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the Lord does.
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  SPEAKER_01: Don't destroy an entire family of birds because you feel entitled to or that you are you're simply able to.
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  SPEAKER_01: Why?
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  SPEAKER_01: Because you are in some way changing the blessing that the Lord has for you.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I've talked about that on many, many occasions of how I taught my own sons uh through birds' nest that we we would find.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um so Paul places uh within the the Christian community, within the messianic community, uh that same principle of honoring your father and your mother, because of course he's relying on the word of God.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: He's relying on the text of the Ten Commandments, specifically the text of Exodus 20.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he is establishing the born-again believer, the one new man, within that same covenant context.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what the Lord has commanded, and here is how we will respond to it.
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  SPEAKER_01: So that it may go well with you.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Again, that's the the promise of um of faithfulness.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now it doesn't mean everything will be perfect.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say it'll be perfect.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: It says it will be well, you know.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it doesn't mean that everything is going to be perfect, uh, your your roses will always come up perfectly and everything else.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: But it is the idea that faithfulness, faithfulness before the Lord really is the reward unto itself.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is the blessing unto itself.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: We really need no further blessing than to simply obey, to simply trust him.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I just read this, you know, this marvelous quote I'm reading C.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: S.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis, a grief observed, for some reason.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he makes this remarkable, he's he's kind of chastising himself at the beginning of it.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that he talked about, he's talking about faith, and he talks about how he's kind of intellectualized it.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: He intellectualized the rope that he hold that he relies on.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then he realizes after the death of his wife that he really wasn't trusting the rope.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in times when when we come to this place in our life where we we look at the word of God, we look at uh obedience before the Lord, trusting him in all circumstances and so on, it really is not until we are in the midst of taking hold of that rope and actually leaning on it, holding on to it, where this is life or death, that and I love how he brings it back.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't end there in chastisement of himself.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: He does a turn at the end.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he and he says how rather than being kind of a rebuke, it's it shows the quality of your faith.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: So the trials end up showing you the quality of your faith.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the grace in that is that as you are moving through the trials, you you know that he has you, but you're seeing the places where you need adjustment, where you need further growth, where you need further maturity.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then again, that's why we need each other to to kind of um help help each other through those moments.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that all goes back to you know what Paul is laying as a foundation here, that it begins in the home.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: When we're born again, I'm sorry to say we are born again as brand new creations.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: We have to in many ways unlearn what we have learned, and we have to relearn things that we thought we had already learned, and we have to, so you do go through a period of time where, you know, discipleship, I know people discipleship, maturity, mentorship, and so on is not negative.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that you have um that you're any less capable or any any less intelligent or any less equipped.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: It it's just the continuation of how the Lord matures us.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: He matures us with each other.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: He gives us the blessing and the gift of people who maybe are a little bit more experienced in this way or in that way, that they're able to share that experience so that we can grow, and again, we can grow in the fear and admonition of the Lord because we are children before him.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so Paul is really directing us to not only the children of the household, but the children of the Lord himself.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: So one thing we do note in this in this section up to uh we haven't read through verse nine yet, is that he will repeat that phrase in the Lord.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: So this deserves you know some attention here.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say, children, just obey your parents.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we teach in the Western world.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Obey your parents.
• 17:02
  unknown: Honor thy father, thine mother.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Honor them.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: But he adds, obey your parents in the Lord.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it is it's a way that, again, it it helps us to understand the nature of the relationship, just as wives, back to verse 22, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: So again, everything, every relationship comes under the Lordship of Christ.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul is is helping us to understand.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: So the Lordship qualifies the entire command.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: The lordship of Messiah qualifies the entire command.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: The lordship of Messiah, I would even venture to say, defines the nature of our relationship to him and also to each other.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: So they're called, children are called to honor parents as it is consistent with the will of God.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: I know personally, uh now obviously I haven't read every every treatment of the Fifth Commandment.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: I've read a lot, but not every.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I know of no one who says, obey your parents, honor your parents, even as they try to lead you into sin.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what that's not the expectation.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: So here it's as, you know, it's consistent with the will of God, as He would lead us, as He would command us and direct us.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And again, parents are under the authority of Messiah, they remain under the authority of the Messiah.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: So the command doesn't give a blank check for parental authority.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're your kids, I gave them to you, now you can do whatever you want.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Again, in the household of faith, obviously, we're not speaking to those outside of faith, but we're speaking to those in the household of faith.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: There is a great responsibility, and Paul amplifies this when he speaks uh about fathers in verse 4, and we'll touch on in a moment.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um that you will take care of, that you will mature, that you will um instruct, that you will give an example of godliness to.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Everything that we want modeled from those that are examples to us, we need to example to our children.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're not going to do it perfectly.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: But when we do it imperfectly, we demonstrate repentance.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I think that is something that we all need to bear in mind.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not a blank check.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Here are your children, do whatever you want to them, with them, doesn't matter, we don't care.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's not what the Lord is saying.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: So the Christian household is a household where everyone answers to the Lord.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone answers to the Lord in one way or another.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that principle will be even more um important when Paul discusses fathers.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just read verse 4 again.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, fathers, this is a really remarkable qualification because Paul doesn't just tell children to obey parents.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: He's he immediately places responsibility upon the parents, specifically the dad.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Think about what he did with the husband and wives.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Wives, submit to your own husband as to the Lord, right?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then he gives a very short treatment of that and then gives a much longer treatment to the husband.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Love your wives even as Christ loved the church.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And on and from there.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: So he is laying that same type of qualification here.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: The responsibility is upon the parents to do this.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the fathers, of course, in the ancient world had tremendous authority over their children, particularly in the Roman Empire.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And again, the household codes that inform the society instructed that.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: You have this responsibility.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is what you can do, this is what you need to do.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is, and uh, that was part of the normal uh affair.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: So he doesn't just tell fathers, exercise your will well, exercise your authority well, be prudent.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: He's not saying that.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Don't provoke your children.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Think about how we might provoke each other, what that demeanor might be.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And he's saying, Don't do that.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it is a provocation.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a provocation to anger, it's a provocation to wrath.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Don't cause the child to act out.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Be measured in your response, be measured in your relationship.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: With with your child, take it seriously.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it is a great responsibility.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um that never ends, of course, you know, as I've told young parents, don't worry when they turn 18 and they go away, their problems just get bigger and more expensive.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're always going to be around you, they're never going to go anywhere.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when we think about the that responsibility, uh, one of one of the great joys that I have is even though my youngest son doesn't live, you know, he decided to move 1,100 miles away with uh FaceTime and so on, I get to do home home repairs with him.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: So telling him what he needs to buy, telling him how to do it, telling him, no, that's not how you use it.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: No, you need this tool, not that tool, all through the wonders of the phone.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: So at some point you think I would say, you know what, you brat, uh you know, you're almost 30 years old, you can do this on your own.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: But again, fathers don't provoke your children to wrath.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, and I actually do enjoy it quite a bit.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, that's the nature of our relationship, is that even though he's, I don't know, 29 or 30, 29 must be, he still calls dad.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he calls dad when he doesn't know.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do I should I buy this or should I buy that?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, my headlight's out.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: How do I fix that?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, there's a rattle in my front end.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think that is?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Not driving it, don't know.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he still calls dad.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And why is that?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because of the years and years and years of relationship where I didn't provoke him.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't, you know, my son, I was strict with my sons, obviously.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, I I never beat them with the iron rod, as that was a serious question.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Did you really beat them with an iron rod?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: He's sitting one of them is sitting back here.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: But they will tell you that, you know, I did something even more cruel, which was when they were punished and they were grounded and they were sent to the room, I wasn't gonna work harder than them.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I wasn't gonna take away their video games, I wasn't gonna take the TV out and go through all that hassle.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just unplugged the power supply and took that and hit it.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: That went that went in the safe and was locked away.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: So they had to look at their video game systems and their TVs, but have no way of turning them on.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna do the time for the crime.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna work harder than you.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: So parental authority is subject to restraint.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: We should but it should be subject to restraint.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So discipline, instruction, you know, when Paul is speaking, discipline and instruction of the Lord, of course, this again reflects the understanding within the Jewish community that the primary place of formation in the faith and in life is at home.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Think about our society today.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: We ship our kids off to schools, public schools, um, elementary, secondary, um, college, grad school, and so on.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we have begun to rely on them for formation that really belongs.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about educationally, I'm talking about the formation of the character.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and quite honestly, in many respects, the institutions have overstepped their mandate to rather than passing on education, they've passed on ideology.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we have in many cases um given up that responsibility.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we homeschool both of our sons, and of course, you know, they turned out horribly, horribly deficient.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't graduate college, they didn't get master's degrees in their respective fields.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they did.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they were both very high up in their classes, they're, you know, very well regarded in their fields.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but again, that is because we took the the initiative from Scripture to be as um consistent and involved in the formation as we could.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So this is, you know, obviously this is very important because it will continue that the chain of uh of passing on the faith and so on.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um so again, uh Deuteronomy 6 tells us the the parent will teach the child diligently, teach the commandments of God diligently, teach the word of God diligently to them, and that's a that's a hallmark of our faith.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: It is today as well.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what we do here in Shabbat school and so on should not be the primary spiritual education of the child, it's secondary.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: It is an enhancement, it is a coming alongside of what the child receives in spiritual formation should primarily be in the home.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that's something.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we pay tithes there, so we want you to educate our children.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's we come alongside of you, we are not the primary source for that.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: So what the children learn here should be um an enhancement or uh of what they're learning already at home.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the way, I think, in my opinion, my very humble opinion, the way it should be.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: So discipline isn't domination.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think we have a tendency because of how um of how discipline has been used.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we hear it discipline, discipleship, disciple, learner.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we need to be taught.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: So the discipline of the Lord should never be used as permission for harshness or abuse.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's not license to abuse.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: So Paul has established a pattern.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: If we look back in Ephesians, we see the pattern that he has established.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Messiah gives himself for his people, husbands give themselves uh for their wives.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Parents are forbidden to provoke their children, specifically.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Fathers are forbidden to provoke their children.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: So this constant pattern is authority governed by love, by the love of the Lord, by the love of his word, by the love that we have for our spouse and our children, and so on.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it is, and in his love, in the Lord's love, we find grace, we find mercy, we find forgiveness, everything that we need in order to live in godliness.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've probably mellowed out a lot more uh in the last, you know, five, six, seven years.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think since COVID, I was, you know, I was forced to mellow out after COVID.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but now I see everything as a discipleship opportunity.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, whether it is a difficult situation to navigate, or it's someone who is coming in who's absolutely green, has no background in any anything to do with uh the word of God, all discipleship opportunities.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Every conversation is a discipleship opportunity as we live together and move forward together.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's all governed by love.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's governed by love.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not governed by, you know, I I've had to really reject the high-growth model that the people often embrace.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: I just had a conversation with a brother who is still working through believing that blessing and and success in in ministry is somehow an affirmation of his blessing or his um approval by the Lord.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: That is still very prevalent.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, leadership uh uh leadership uh ministries quite often will advertise how to get your church from 250 to 500, how to get from 500 to 1,000.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you hit that 1,000 feet uh ceiling, we can get you to 2,500.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: That is is not growth of the church.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that is that's business model, and it's it's a it's a good business model, but it's not a good church model.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you if the Lord is pausing the growth of the institution, it uh the the they'll say the communion that you have among believers, there's something else behind that.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe the not only the leadership isn't ready to deal with more people, but maybe the people aren't ready to deal with more people.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we haven't um mastered hospitality, maybe we haven't mastered groundkeeping, maybe we haven't mastered vacuuming the floors, whatever it might be.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um it is, in a manner of speaking, of course, his timing for everything.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I I thank the Lord that he didn't give me the responsibilities given me today two years ago, ten years ago.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we we we have to think about how every relationship we have is governed by love, governed by the word of God, governed by his grace.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: So biblical discipline, rather than being dominating, biblical discipline seeks formation rather than humiliation.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you how many times people have left this congregation because they knew they were going to be disciplined because of something, you know, the correction that was needed.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: But rather than enduring the correction, they interpreted the they anticipated the correction to be humiliation and not restorative.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: So they left in presumption, believing that what was about to happen to them was going to crush.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we can correct someone without crushing them.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Aren't you glad that the Lord corrects us without crushing us, right?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: So biblical uh discipline establishes boundaries without creating fear.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: You have absolutely no reason to fear me as a leader or as a shepherd.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Why why would you?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's not my job.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's not my job to make you fear me.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um in fact, if you do, I'm doing something wrong.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that doesn't mean that we don't I you don't have respect for me, because Paul and Peter talk about that.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: But that should be in the measure that I have respect and love for you because of the relationship that we have in the body of Christ.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we can have uh establish boundaries, do corrections without fear, and really teaching obedience um or biblical discipline teaches obedience without or while cultivating wisdom to help people to grow in wisdom.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: What is wisdom?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh the beginning of the uh beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's also applying the word of God.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: How do we apply, rightly apply the word of God?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we have to be taught the word of God, we have to be in the word of God, we have to be meditating on the word of God, understand it, understand it.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um we have to we have to have people who have done the work of learning the culture, the context, the text.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I walked into a wonderful conversation in the men's group this morning about um scripture, origins of scripture, and stuff like that.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was wonderful.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: And thankfully the Lord at some point had me immersed in that learning.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you can just walk and and and talk in semi-intelligently about the subject.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Let's read um bondservants now, or the doulos, the servant.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's reasons why it's translated as bondservant and sometimes a servant.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um has to do with the translator's preference.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes doulos was a bondservant, was somebody who was bonded to another because of a debt, but that wasn't always the case.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I would personally prefer it to be slaves.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I think uh quite often we soften the language a little bit.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Let's read verse 5 to verse 9.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: As you would the Lord, right?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: So again, he's repeating that idea, not by way of eye service, in other words, doing it just like we would say lip service, as people pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ, as really our services unto the Lord, no matter what it is.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now he's transitioning from someone who is in uh the uh dulos, a servant position, to someone who is the master.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Verse nine.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Masters do the do the same to them and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is really a remarkable section of scripture that um frames very differently, very very distinctly a difficult um a difficult uh difficulty in the first century.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I would uh one of the things that I would caution when you read this is not to equate slavery as we knew it here, let's say in the United States, with the slavery that Paul is talking about.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Slaves in that period of time could have been from any people group for a number of different reasons.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just economic, sometimes it was military, but sometimes it was somebody selling themselves to um for the purpose of debt cancellation.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: Other times it was for security.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: You would sell yourself to a household in order to be more secure so that you had a place to live and food to eat and so on.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't strictly based on race.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: And even though there were different times, obviously, in the Roman history and the amount of um power that uh an owner had over the individual, um, it was by and large very different from what we would read of today or what we know of our history today.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to be careful not to automatically equate the two.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's obviously similarities, but there is also a lot of distinctions.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um Paul addresses this passage uh recognizing, you know, and and as we recognize it, he's recognizing a social reality of the time.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've read, if I recall, it was 30 to 40 percent of the Roman Empire lived in slavery, had some type of slavery.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a lot to that.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's a far greater conversation that I can get into today, but Paul is writing into that reality.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now, how would we equate this today?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: Can we apply it today in some way, or do we leave it in that context?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can do it as an employee employer.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can do it in that manner of how do we approach work in the workplace today?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: But obviously, we never lose the context.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: So obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, right?
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: We are to work out a salvation with fear and trembling.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: And now he's saying, obey your earthly masters.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: So do so with a great deal of respect, do so with reverence.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, again, because there are a variety of reasons as to why someone may find themselves in that position and he is speaking into it.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um when we think about slavery at the time, again, uh many different forms.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it was the result of warfare, conquering another people, sometimes debt, sometimes birth.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: If a woman was uh a slave, and there were ex there were sometimes there were there was permanent slavery, but someone could buy their way out of slavery, or they could be released from slavery um at some periods when they were 30 years old.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: So there were different, again, you know, it's a long history that is is kind of too difficult to unpack in one sitting.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, again, if a woman was pregnant and she had a child, that child was not born free, they were born a slave.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, Paul talks about um being born free, um, you know, speaking in in terms of his position within the Roman Empire, born uh uh uh he was born a Roman citizen, um, poverty, and of course a variety of other uh circumstances.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: The doulos can of course be translated as slave or bondservant, uh depending on the context.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think for the purposes of uh what is being expressed here, bondservant's probably the obvious choice because he's speaking to a general condition, not a specific condition.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: I would tend to, when he addresses uh us in Christ, I would say we need to we need to make that um we we should not soften that language in terms of our relationship to the Lord.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should be slaves to Christ.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: But again, we're we're the bride, we're children, we're heirs, we're joint heirs, but we're also servants or slaves.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that has to do with the one who has purchased us, right?
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be kind of, you know, but he's using, he uses all this language in the Word of God so that we understand the depth and the breadth of our relationship to him.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not just slaves, we are free men in the household, we're children of the household, we're heirs of the household.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that is something that when we understand the dynamic of our relationship with him, it becomes much more profound.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think Paul particularly is directing us to the reality of the relationship, of why or how we do what we do.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the marvelous thing is I've noticed that as I age, you know, 35 has been a hard long 20 years, 17, 18 years.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um it seems like a lot longer than that.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, as I age and I have a larger team of people around me that keep me alive in the in the lab coats, what I've noticed is that, you know, whether they know it or not, they are doing a service as unto the Lord.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because, and that's the thing, how you view what you do.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Think about if if if uh like if we lived in New York City, if the sanitation workers just disappeared, um if the water treatment facility in New York City just stopped running, if we stopped cleaning the facilities here, if we just said, you know what, we'll just let the garbage pile up, we'll just throw it in the closet, and when, you know, whatever.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is important to fostering life, of fostering um the health of people.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was noticing that this morning, you know, I don't have all the answers.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have, you know, I'm the only non-medical child of my mother, you know.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: So there in the medical world, I'm not, I'm completely, so I just tell my physician, this is what I got going on, and then she tells me back, okay, this is what we're gonna do.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, Okay, you know, but that's as unto the Lord, because this physician is helping me to continue my service as unto the Lord.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we need that interconnectedness.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: So your particular calling, your vocation, your volunteerism is only um, it's only degrading if you degrade it.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's only undervalued if you undervalue it.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because as Paul's telling the servants, do this all as unto the Lord, not unto man.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't be done to impress me, because nine nine times out of ten, although I notice, I'm not gonna say anything, um, I I it means a great deal to me because again, it's this this is not a team of one taking care of everything.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a team of, my goodness, I don't know how many at this point.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: But it's all done as unto the Lord to give the people of God who congregate here a place.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just for us on Shabbat and during the, you know, it's our brothers and sisters who meet here on Sunday as well.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that changes our perspective of how we are doing these things and why we're doing these things.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: So when Paul is Paul is saying Paul doesn't tell the servant your master is your ultimate authority.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Obey your earthly masters because they are the ultimate authority.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: They're the ones who determine whether you go to hell or go to heaven.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Obey him.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't say anything like that.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: He changes the nature of the relationship.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Your relationship with this earthly master is really your relationship with this with the heavenly master.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: So your earthly circumstance and hear me on this your earthly circumstance does not determine the ultimate meaning of your service.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: Messiah is your Lord.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: He is the one that determines the meaning of it.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: So no matter where we are whether we're 35 or 36 whether we do a lot or we do little whether we do it to perfection or we do it just to get it done the ultimate meaning doesn't come from anyone of this earth.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: It comes from the Lord himself.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: So don't determine your your your value or your worth or your contribution based on what your evaluation of it is.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you that when I I come in and the chairs are cleaned and I come in and the lawn is mowed and the garbage is out and I didn't have to do any of the above and people are taking care I come in and the the tables are set for fellowship for the weekend and we have plenty of plates and napkins and forks and spoons and sporks and everything else.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't have to do any of that and somebody did and you know why they did it?
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't do it as unto Justin they did it as unto the Lord.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when you know that a that a community is coming together for the greater good of blessing the body of Christ which is just amazing.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: So when we think about the larger scope of the theology given to us in Ephesians, that's why Ephesians is so beautiful it's a it's a very holistic theology the believer's identity is not fully determined or is not determined by social status.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: The slave may be socially subordinate historically but what if they were born again this is this is where Paul turns this whole relationship on its ear they're still servants of the Messiah they're still born again they're still equal imagine that you were the master but your slave over here is a joint heir with Christ with you in the glory you know you think about how hard that must have been for them to conceptualize.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody told me when I was born again that my slave when he was born again would be equal to me.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're not equal I'm this I'm the master they're the slave.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: But Paul turns this whole thing on its ear.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: So the master may possess social authority but the master is also subordinate to the Messiah.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: So Paul tells doesn't just tell the servants you know be people pleasers do this in order to make him happy that's not what he's saying.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying do it with your whole heart as unto the Lord.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that transforms as I've been saying it transforms everything.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: Paul doesn't define the value of any of us any person's work by social status.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say you hold this position so you're better and greater and everything you do is much more valuable.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know I gave my son a lesson the other day he was hemming and hawing about whether he should buy a sawzall which for me is an important tool to have in your arsenal.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Every man should have a good sawzall in his in his arsenal because you never know when you just need to cut something up and it doesn't matter if it's metal or wood who cares and and I I as I was talking to him and he's talking about buying this$130 tool that was on sale I said how much do you make an hour and he told me how much you made an hour.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: How much how long is it going to take you to take this thing apart by hand which you've already put three hours into so calculate that you think there's another four hours for you to do this job by hand or it'll take you probably 20 minutes to do with the sawzall put it in perspective.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah you change this but you change the value you change how he perceives what he's doing and his work.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: In my opinion it was more valuable to buy the tool that he'd be able to reuse again and again and again and again you're using it for free.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're using it for free.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you're looking at this what is my time really worth what am what am I doing?
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: How what is it really worth and when we do everything as unto the Lord think about that we might make you know$1,000 an hour we may make what's the what minimum wage I don't even know$15 an hour.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know I don't make much more than that but uh it is$18 is it my goodness are you serious?
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know$15 16 something what$15 oh my anyway I'll move along what anyway let me move along um you didn't should have asked I guess I shouldn't have brought it up higher than when I was 18 well yeah I remember my first job it was it was it was yeah anyway why did I bring up minimum wage I don't remember value value yeah value of what we're doing and poor podcast listeners are like what is wrong with this guy um so we don't we don't base our our value our work on social status um so the value of our of what we do as into the Lord is not based on who we are in ourselves but who we are who we're doing it for and how we're doing it.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: Are we doing it uh with joy with gratitude and the privilege that we have or are we kind of doing it begrudgingly I think we need we all need those times to make sure that we're our hearts in the right place.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the Lord sees quite often he sees uh what society overlooks or what our what we ourselves as a family overlook.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: We might not think about who vacuumed the chair so that I wasn't walking out of here with cat hair all over me or dog hair all over me when I own either but the Lord sees the person who did that and honors the person who did that and it's beautiful.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: So masters do the same to them do the same to them I mean think about how revolutionary that is masters do the same to them and stop your threatening stop barking at them.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: Stop treating them subhuman you know and he's speaking obviously to those and there must have been in Ephesus of course those who were slave uh slave owners who were barking threats even as they were claiming to be born again.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: So don't do that.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: Remember before whom you both will stand.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: Before God, before the Lord one day he will stand alongside of that person that he presently owns in the natural world.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of remarkable to think about that.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: So Paul doesn't explicitly command of course and this is one of the great criticisms of the New Testament text is that he doesn't you know speak for the purpose or speak for the cause of abolition of slavery through this passage.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: But what we do see scripture doing is put limitations and changing the expectations and ultimately you know Wilberforce in the 1700s and so on who advocated based upon the word of God for the abolition of slavery saw the limitation saw the restriction saw how the Lord was dealing with humanity to to get rid of that and of course as I've said a few months ago there's more slaves alive today than throughout um throughout the uh let's say the crowd the transatlantic trade that's that's a staggering amount of people I think it's can't remember the exact statistic it was it's it's amazing that in a in this day and age that's still this is still such a prevalent problem.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: So what are we doing about it?
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: How are we how are we addressing it?
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: So the social hierarchy of Rome it cannot determine the believer's ultimate identity before the Lord how and who society says you are how important you are I heard a I heard a remarkable story.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember who it was when uh when Pence was vice president and he he was he needed he wanted to go to church he was in town and but he he needed to go to I don't remember why he needed to go somewhere close enough to the White House for some reason.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a church in Washington obviously and of course when the vice president goes anywhere there is an entire entourage that accompanies him.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: But apparently this the story as I as I rem recall it being told was um he was brought in of course he had a security detail but once they had secured everything he just sat in the rows with everyone else and the a woman went to complain to the pastor after and say how dare you let him come in here how dare you bring politics in here how dare you do this or when she heard he was coming I'm sorry it wasn't after it was before and she ended up sitting right behind him and sitting in proximity to him seeing him worship seeing him listen seeing him greet everybody and changed her entire perspective of not only the office obviously but the person the man that was there because it's not his status as vice president that gets him into heaven it's his status as a believer right and the pastor was blown away because just being literally you know inches from this person that changed her whole perspective on him.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know and that that's something that I think is um that is is something vitally important for all of us to remember.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: We might see someone who is in a very high social position, you know, position in our society, local government or whatever or what some important corporate position and have an idea of who they are or what they're doing or what have you but we again we have to look at everyone as much as we can through the lens of the gospel.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: So just we just bear that in mind because it's ultimately not our status here in the United States is not a status in Rome but is our status as sons and daughters of of of the Lord.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: So Paul's again Paul's teaching is deeply rooted in scripture we, you know, as you have probably noticed over the time if you've spent any holidays here is that every holiday is a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, you know, and we always think back to that not just to remember that but to remember our own former condition as being slaves to sin and to know what it is to be enslaved to sin.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: And from that how we then treat those who are before us that need the gospel that need encouragement and so on.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: Those who are still wrestling with issues.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't remember just for the sake of remembering we remember we remember for the sake of ministering and relating to so the memory creates an ethical obligation towards vulnerable people you know those who are vulnerable those who are fragile those who are um you know in in a need that maybe we can't see externally you know it's easy to see the need of poverty but it's not always easy to see the need that is emotional or mental.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know and we have to be mindful of that and and and and make sure that we care for people in that manner.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: We can't just come down heavy on everyone so that's something that Paul is reminding us of he's drawing our attention back to and just to kind of bring this to a head for this part of the chapter next week we'll deal with the full armor of God probably slightly differently than you're used to dealing with it or studying it.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: But the household as we've seen from uh chapter five verse 22 onward verse 21 onward I should say um contains different responsibilities and different relationships but everyone stands under the same Lord.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: We all do um saying that there's distinction as I I think I cover this in the discussion of husbands and wives saying that there's distinction is uh between men and women between husband and wife doesn't mean that distinction is less dignity or less dignified or less important.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: As we talked about the the bride is called to be created to be the strong helper to the groom which at some points that means um you know to be uh an advocate for correction if it's needed uh but simply because someone is born again and they happen to be female doesn't mean that they are uh on the outside of the camp looking in right that we men do the serious things of spirituality you women just watch no that's not the case as I've said before the Lord's you know how can how can we expect to continue the gospel mission if we're benching half the team we can't bench half the team it's impossible.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: So let's just look quickly at this the wife answers to Messiah the husband answers to Messiah the child answers to Messiah the parents answer to Messiah the servants answer to Messiah the master answers to Messiah so what does this do?
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: Paul is leveling the field right and that's the beauty of the table when you sit at a table in fellowship you know we don't have a special seating for those of us who are more exalted.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: Have you noticed that I'm still advocating for it but still it hasn't happened but have you noticed that when we come to the table together we're all on the same you know the same level that's what Paul is is is helping us to understand.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: So social distinction may remain within structures as we see not only from the first century but even to today but they no longer determine a person's ultimate worth before the Lord.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just in some authority is never absolute parents are entrusted with formation children are moral participants in covenant community work can be worship and that is the meaning of Avodah to to to worship before the Lord is not just the act of raising our hands in praise it's the act of using our hands.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it is both work and it is both worship that's caught up in one word in Hebrew those who possess authority are present are accountable to the Lord.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna pause there because Messiah is the ultimate authority and we recognize and we move in such a way and we live in such a way that honors that honors each other honors the unique calling of I think and it's maybe maybe I'm just old fashioned but I think it's a beautiful thing to be called as a husband.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's beautiful to be called as a bride I think it's beautiful to be called as a child as a son or as a daughter I think it's beautiful to be called as a friend.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever our calling and however many variety of hats we might wear in that I think it's all beautiful when it's done unto the Lord.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: So for the purpose of the podcast we'll pause and then we'll see if anybody has a question Amen.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for studying with us and until our next episode may the Lord bless and keep you all in the mighty name of Jesus amen