Children and Scripture

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’” – Ephesians 6:1-2

Paul’s claim in verse two here is, strictly speaking, untrue. The second commandment is the first commandment with a promise; the one he cites here is the fifth commandment. Interestingly, I’ve yet to be in any bible study group where anyone is familiar enough with the commandments to notice the discrepancy. A survey by Kelton Research a decade ago found that the majority of Americans can recall the ingredients of a McDonald’s Big Mac hamburger more easily than the ten commandments. Less than half of 1,000 respondents could recall the fifth.

Why would Paul have made such a blatant error? No one knows for sure: perhaps he meant that the fifth is first in importance (which is what I tell my children), if not in sequence. Perhaps he meant the first among the second set of commandments. Perhaps he meant the first commandment learned by children. Perhaps the promise of the second commandment is not specific enough to count, or is more “a declaration of God’s character than a promise” (Stott).

Regardless, one fact is true: Paul addresses children directly. That means children were present at the reading of his letter. Children were active participants in house church gatherings. Paul encourages, if not assumes, some facility with Scripture. I scrawled in the margin of my Bible: “teach our kids the 10 commandments!” Do you know the ten commandments? Do your kids? It hits me so often (because I forget so often) that I am responsible for whatever exposure my children will have to the word of God during their formative years. They certainly aren’t getting it at their public school, or from their peers. It is up to me to crack open the Bible with them on some kind of regular basis. Paul doesn’t say, “okay, now bring the children back in here for this part”—he assumes they have been there, listening, all along.