The Second Half of That Verse Is Almost Never Read Out

I have heard the first half of Ephesians 6 read out in that room more times than I could count.

I have never once, in thirty years, heard the second half read out with it.

That is not an accusation. I want to be very clear about that before I write another sentence, because this is the article on this site most likely to be misread as an attack on fathers, and it is not one. Half of the fathers I know would be relieved by the second half of that paragraph if anybody put it in front of them, because half of them are already worried about the thing it names and have never had a word for it.

But something happens in a household when a paragraph is only ever quoted in one direction. The half that gets used becomes a lever, and the half that stays unread becomes invisible, and after two generations nobody in the room even knows it is there.

So here is the whole thing, both halves, in the order Paul wrote it.

The first half, and it is not softened

Start with what everybody knows, and let it stand, because I have no interest in weakening it.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. (Ephesians 6:1-3, King James Version)

For this is right. No hedging. Paul does not qualify it, he does not add exceptions, and neither will I.

And in the Lord, which is not a loophole; it is the frame. It means the obedience is done as part of a life lived toward God rather than as a raw transaction with a household.

So the first half is real, it is binding, and anybody looking for an escape hatch in this article will not find one. What follows is not an exemption. It is the rest of the paragraph.

You are held by an instruction that is right, and Scripture says so without hedging. Ephesians 6:1 calls it right in as many words, and it is by the Spirit, Galatians 5:22, that the meekness and longsuffering it takes are produced rather than gritted out.

The second half is addressed to the fathers

Here is the verse that has been sitting in the same paragraph the whole time.

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

And, ye fathers. Paul turns and addresses them directly, in the same breath, in the same paragraph, and gives them a command of their own.

That is a remarkable thing to write into a first century letter. In that world the authority of a father over a household was close to absolute and largely unquestioned, and Paul, in one clause, places him under an instruction too.

And the instruction is not to be nice. It is specific and it names an outcome: do not provoke them to wrath. Which means a father is being made responsible not only for what he does but for what it produces in a child, and that is a heavier standard than most people have ever asked of one.

You are inside a paragraph that gives an instruction in both directions. Ephesians 6:4 turns and addresses the fathers by name, and it is the Holy Spirit, Romans 8:15, who is named as the Spirit of adoption rather than of bondage, which is the atmosphere the whole paragraph is aiming at.

Colossians says what the provoking does

Paul writes the same instruction to another congregation and adds a clause that tells you why it matters.

Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. (Colossians 3:21)

Lest they be discouraged. The word carries the sense of a spirit going out of somebody. Not rebellion. Not anger, in the end. A flatness.

And that is the exact thing I have watched happen to people I grew up with. They did not become rebels. Almost none of them did. They became flat, and they kept coming, and the flatness got read in that room as maturity, and by twenty-eight the light was out and nobody could say when it went.

That is a diagnosis Scripture makes on its own initiative. Nobody had to complain to get that verse written. God put the risk in the letter before any child in Colossae said a word about it.

You were seen before anybody complained, and the risk was named by God rather than reported by you. Colossians 3:21 names the discouragement as an outcome to be avoided, and it is the Spirit of God, Romans 8:26, who is described as helping in the exact place a person has gone quiet.

The measure God gives for a father is Himself

The reason this is not an argument about rights is that Scripture keeps giving fathers a standard, and the standard is a Person.

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. (Psalm 103:13-14)

He knoweth our frame. He factors in what a person is made of. He does not require of somebody more than they can bear, and He is described as remembering their limits without being reminded.

And Isaiah gives the picture in a working image.

He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah 40:11)

Gently lead those that are with young. He sets the pace of the whole flock by the ones least able to keep up. That is the opposite of setting the pace by the strongest and letting the rest fail.

I write that as a father as much as a son. It is the standard I am under, and I miss it in my own house often enough that this article costs me something to write.

You have a Father whose care is measured by what you are made of. Psalm 103:14 says He knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust, and it is by His Spirit, Romans 8:16, that a person is assured of being a child rather than an employee.

What to do with the half you were never given

Here is the honest practical question, and I am going to answer it in a way that will disappoint anybody hoping for ammunition.

The second half of that paragraph is not for quoting at your father. If it goes into a family argument as a weapon it will do damage and it will not do good, and the person holding it will have turned the exact same trick that was turned on them, in the opposite direction.

What it is for is your own head. It is for the man of twenty-eight who cannot work out why he is flat and has been told his whole life that the only instruction in that paragraph is the one addressed to him. Knowing that God wrote a second instruction, and wrote it without being asked, changes what a person believes about God long before it changes anything at home.

And then it is for the house you are building now, if you have one, where you are the one being addressed by verse 4.

You are able to receive the second half without using it on anybody. Ephesians 6:4 was written into a letter God intended a whole congregation to hear, and it is the Spirit of truth, John 16:13, who guides into it rather than arming a person with it.