In Ephesians 5 and 6, Paul is instructing those saints who happen to be married, or happen to be parents, or happen to be children, or happen to be slaves, how to deport themselves. Paul is not promoting any of these stations in life, as should be evident when one realizes that advice to slaves is included in his instruction. Would anyone imagine Paul to be PROMOTING slavery as an ideal way to live? Of course not.

And yet there are two teachers in the body of Christ today, namely Clyde Pilkington and Stephen Hill, who passionately insist both in articles and in books that, here in Ephesians, Paul is promoting marriage and parenting as "the advanced will of the Lord for today."

Because these men specialize in patriarchy (they publish other articles and even books on this topic) and focus on family life, they want EVERYONE to be patriarchs and to focus on family life. It is not merely that marriage and parenting are noble enterprises, but that these enterprises have moved "front and center," and are actually "the focus of our era." Yes, and not only that, but "the advanced will of the Lord for today." Anyone, then, wanting to live "the advanced will of the Lord for today," and reading the writings of these men, would feel compelled to be married with children. Otherwise, they could not be very advanced.

Anyone reading Paul's earlier letter of 1 Corinthians, specifically chapter 7, will realize that Paul would prefer everyone to be like him, that is, single and unencumbered. The reason is easy to understand (for most people); it is so both men and women might be "undistracted for the Lord." Paul takes pains to point out that married people must focus on each other and would therefore be unable to focus entirely on Christ. This is timeless truth. But while Paul would prefer body members to be single, he does not insist on it, for he is aware of the human need for sexual relations.

Pilkington and Hill reject the entire letter of 1 Corinthians as containing any advice for us today. Why so radical of a disposition? Because in 1908 a man named Charles Welch decided that Paul's letters should be surgically dissected from themselves. Where would be the cut? At the line of Acts 28:28, when Paul was in prison. Who decided this again? Charles Welch. What authority did this man have to do such a thing? None. What happened at Acts 28:28 that was so important? Nothing to justify Paul's canon being so crudely dissected. Paul merely repeated to some representative Jews come to Rome what had been said before, that they were a stubborn people (not exactly headline news there) and that God had already gone to the nations ("to the nations WAS dispatched this salvation of God"—Acts 28:28), a common fact which had occurred thirty years before at the call of Paul on the road to Damascus.

God's new attitude toward the nations was unmistakably (at least it's unmistakable to most people) provided for when our Lord died on the cross and the veil in the temple was divinely rent—thus obliterating, in probably less than one second, the Jews' monopoly on access to God. THIS was the dividing line between divine Jewish preference and divine Jewish rejection—not some dull, one-sentence history lesson uttered by Paul to a handful of Israelites.

But back to Ephesians. To say that advising wives, husbands, and children how they ought to behave is commensurate with PROMOTING marriage and parenthood—and not only promoting it but insisting that these institutions are "the advanced will of the Lord for today"—one would also have to say that, since Paul is also advising slaves in this same context, then Paul must also be promoting slavery as "the advanced will of the Lord for today." But since we know that Paul would never do that, then neither is he promoting marriage and parenting as such.

And yet Pilkington and Hill still insist that he is. How do these men deal, then, with slavery in this same context? Deceitfully. In their articles, they change "slavery" to "employment," wash their hands and walk away, hoping, apparently, that no one will notice the sleight-of-hand.

Based on the evidence and the hiding of evidence, the body of Christ must reject this selfish, unscriptural teaching. In no way is Paul promoting marriage and parenting in Ephesians 5, no more than he is promoting slavery. Paul is merely instructing those who happen to be in these stations how to deport themselves as believers. Paul's advice in 1 Corinthians chapter seven concerning his wish for believers to remain single if they can, stands. Otherwise, Paul would be, in Ephesians, encouraging saints to BE distracted for the Lord—the very thing he warns against in Corinthians.

This is impossible.
 

Download/Play MP3