6:4
All the teaching on submission is in danger of being taken the wrong way, and those who may seem to be “benefitting” from the submission (i.e. those being submitted to) can be tempted to take advantage of the situation. If Paul’s teaching is taken as a whole there is never any justification for this. So here fathers are urged not to “provoke your children to anger”. We are not to just tell them to obey full stop, without any explanation, or with that being the sum total of our fathering. Now there are times when we should just obey, even if we don’t understand. However, part of fathering is bringing children up in “the discipline and instruction of the Lord”. So it is not just discipline, and it is not just teaching, but both.
6:5
Attention now turns to slaves and masters, or bondservants and masters (so ESV). Slavehood was endemic in almost all ancient civilisations. The “why doesn’t the Bible just condemn slavery” is a rather unthinking question. The Bible is more geared towards instructing people how to live a Christian life within the circumstances that they find themselves. Moreover, the church was in no position to exert any political power. So servants/slaves are to obey with “fear and trembling”. This is not fear and trembling of their earthly masters, but fear and trembling of the Lord. So we are to obey with sincerity as we would obey the Lord.
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