Heritage Reformed Baptist Mission
COLOSSIANS
A small letter with a large meaning
Sermon 11
The Authority of the Family
Colossians 3:18-21
God ordained and created the family when He made a suitable helper (Eve) for Adam and brought her to him, making them husband and wife. Before they sinned, they were co-regents, equal in every way. But after their Fall God established an order of authority ordaining the husband to be the head of the wife and the wife to be in submission to her husband.
Authority is the right to take action, make final decisions, and give commands and enforce obedience. The jurisdiction of authority is the sphere of influence. The family is the sphere of the husband’s authority.
The basis of authority in the family is God’s Word. It is He who set the order, making the husband the family head. The husband is to be 100% husband, the wife is to be 100% wife and the children are to be 100% children. There are specific responsibilities prescribed in the text for this sermon with additional specifics in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
Wives are to be submissive to their own husbands. The word “own” is not there just for grammatical window dressing. Too often, wives of all ages have submitted to someone else’s husband. This command from the Lord forbids them to submit to anyone but their own husband. Not even a godly pastor, deacon or Sunday school teacher is to be a wife’s privy counselor. Any question, any marital difficulty, any problem the wife has is to be discussed and resolved between her and her husband. That does not mean they cannot consult together with a godly pastor or other godly counselor. But it must be together and the husband is the final authority for the wife in any matter.
The wife must consider well the fact the husband’s authority is a God-given obligation. It may be delegated, but it cannot be relinquished. It must not be usurped by anyone, especially by the wife and/or the children. The husband is directly responsible to the Lord to whom he must give an account.
Submission by the wife is to be done as she would submit herself unto the Lord. Submission to a Spirit-filled husband is indeed an excellent example of submission to the Lord. Even if and when the husband is not Spirit-filled the wife’s submission to him is an example of her personal relationship to Christ. But what if the husband is not a Christian?
It is never God’s will for a believer to marry an unbeliever. See 2 Corinthians 6:14. But it is not unusual for a wife who is married to an unbeliever to have been saved since the marriage. In such a case, the Word of God is clear that the wife is to submit even to an unbelieving husband. See 1 Peter 3:1. Her testimony of obedience to her Lord will be an effective influence in her unbelieving husband’s life to lead him to Christ. Of course, submission to a non-Christian husband does not include obeying him in things which are contrary to God’s Word. She, as the apostles of old, must obey God rather than man.
Submission by the wife to her own husband must be with an inner attitude of respect for him as God’s representative. She must recognize him as having responsibility for final decision and yield to it within the bounds of God’s Word. His decision in a particular matter, though it be in the bounds of God’s Word, may involve personal opinion and perhaps not be the best decision, but that is not the wife’s responsibility.
Many wives chafe at the idea of being submissive. They think it is too much to ask. Those who feel that way are being rebellious against God. Be that as it may, this writer believes the husband has an even more difficult responsibility to fulfill. He must love his wife as Christ loved the church. See Ephesians 5:25. He must be willing to sacrifice himself to care for his wife’s personal, emotional, physical and spiritual needs. His love for her must be self-effacing. Not doting, but genuinely seeing that every need she has is met within the limits of his God-given ability.
The husband must love his wife as his “own body”. See Ephesians 5:28-29. She is, in fact, his body. “They shall be one flesh,” said the Lord in Genesis 2:24. As he takes care of his own physical body, so he is to take care of his wife.
Authority implies and often leads to authoritarianism. That is too often the case with husbands, even those who are believers. But that is not the kind of authority a husband is to exercise over his wife and family. He is not to deal harshly with them. He is to minister to them in love according to God’s Word, not according to the dictates of the “old man”, who is prone to raise his ugly head, especially in the privacy of the family home. Much prayer and submission to God by the husband will overcome that.
Children in the family have but one responsibility - obedience to their parents. If the parents are Spirit-filled, that will not be so difficult. If they are not or are not believers at all, the command is still in force. The only exception to obedience to their parents on the part of children is if and when the parents tell the children to do something evil, something opposed to God’s Word. As believers, children no less than adults, must obey God rather than man.
It is God’s will for children to obey their parents. Therefore, obedient children are very pleasing to the Lord.
There is one other thing children must do, namely, honor their father and their mother. See Ephesians 6:2-3. That is the fourth of the Ten Commandments. It is applicable to all children regardless of age. See Proverbs 23:22. It matters not whether the parents are living or dead.
Children must live throughout their lives in a way which honors the name of those who brought them into the world. God promises temporal blessings and a full life to those who do.
Parents are commanded to treat their children is such a way as not to provoke them to anger, to wrath, to exasperation. Their spirit must not be broken. That can be done by nagging, ridiculing, showing partiality, keeping necessities from them, being unchristian to them, disagreeing about discipline in front of them, disciplining them in selfish anger and such like. “A broken-down spirit is fatal to youth.” (Bengal)
Parents are to raise their children in the discipline of the Lord. See Ephesians 6:4b. Proper, God-delivered discipline will be given in love. It will teach them respect for authority. It will teach them to be submissive. A child who will not submit to parents will likely not submit to God or any other authority. The problems that would bring do not take a lot of imagining.
Parents are to raise their children in the admonition of the Lord. See again Ephesians 6:4b. That is done first of all by example. Parents show the way by being themselves submissive to God. Then it can be effectively done by precept, first at home and then at the local church of which the family are members.
The authority of the family comes from God. It rests with the husband in final decisions. It is submitted to by the wife in recognition and respect for the husband’s God-given responsibility. It is obeyed by the children who, in God’s structure, has relieved them of responsibility for judgment and decisions which affect the family.
The authority of the family depends upon submission to God for its effectiveness. Within that authority, the husband must lead and love, the wife must submit and respect, the children must obey and honor, and the parents must discipline and teach.
"Most of what Heaven is, our homes may be if we serve God and give [Christ] the main track and not the sidetrack. A church within a church, a republic within a republic, a world within a world, a kingdom within a kingdom is spelled in four letters - H O M E. If things go right there, they go right everywhere." (R.G. Lee)