What Does Ephesians 6:4 Mean?

(4) **Provoke not your children to wrath.**—The word is the same as in Ephesians 4:26. It denotes the exasperation produced by arbitrary and unsympathetic rule. **Nurture and admonition of the Lord.**—In this phrase we have the two elements of education. “Nurture” is a word signifying generally “the treatment due to a child,” but by usage appropriated to practical training, or teaching by discipline; while “admonition” is the “putting children in mind” by word of instruction. It may be noted that in accordance with the characteristic sternness of ancient education, both words have a tinge of severity in them. The “nurture” of this passage is the same as the “chastening” of the famous passage in Hebrews 12:4-11. (Compare the cognate verb in Luke 23:16; 1Corinthians 11:32; 2Corinthians 6:9; 1Timothy 1:20; Revelation 3:19.) The “admonition” is used in Titus 3:10 for rebuke, and, inasmuch as it implies warning, is distinguished from teaching in Colossians 3:16. In this, as in other cases, Christianity gradually softened this stern authority of the father—so strikingly exemplified in the old Roman law—by the idea suggested in the addition of the phrase “of the Lord.” The children belong not to the parent only, but to Christ, taken into His arms in baptism, and sealed as His little ones. Hence the “reverence,” which Juvenal enforced in theory as due to children’s natural purity, become realised in Christian practice, and gradually transformed all Christian education to greater gentleness, forbearance, and love.