And Why Did He Make Them One ?

“… And why did He make them one? He was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and don't be unfaithful to the wife of your youth” [Malachi 2:15]

There are some things and verses that seem clear when we read about them in the Old Testament but when we dive deeper and wider, we find that the Bible progressively reveals the true meaning in other books. We however see the true meaning of all things ultimately in Christ. Most of us grew up thinking that God’s will in procreation was simply for the earth to be full of people; for them to be fruitful and multiply [Genesis 1:28] and when all is done then well and good; God’s purpose is fulfilled and we give ourselves a pat on the back because we think we have done a great job. But procreation is not all and it is far from God’s purposes on its own. The Lord was not looking for the world to be full of wicked people; remember He destroyed the world at one point because He saw “… that human evil was growing more and more throughout the earth, with every inclination of people's thoughts becoming only evil on a continuous basis” [Genesis 6:5, ISV]. Does that sound familiar? He then caused the first rain ever which resulted in the deluge of Noah’s time.

The Old Testament is full of examples of parents who did and did not instruct their children in the way of the Lord but Malachi makes God’s design for marriage and family much clearer than ever before. The lesson in Malachi 2:15 begins with an explanation about why God made a husband and wife one [one flesh] through marriage. It is because His design was that children would be raised from it, but not just any children; He was seeking godly offspring. Godly offspring means children who fear the Lord and live by faith in Him. John Piper says “marriage is for making children disciples of Jesus” and I concur a hundred percent. Your children are tribes that are to be reached with the gospel and they are at your disposal each and every day through your parenting.

Now, the way we do Parenting does not remain stagnant throughout but it takes different modes as children grow, for example, the way parents train and talk to a four-year-old will be quite different from the way they talk to a fourteen-year-old, a twenty-four-year-old and a forty-four-year-old. The level of obedience and responsibility that parents require from a six-year-old is different from what they would require from a thirty-six-year-old. In fact, the older the children grow, the fewer the commands they will require from their parents and the greater their personal responsibilities. Let me explain why that is. There is a natural and unspoken language of separation with children which begins once the parents realise that they are pregnant. No couple wants to be pregnant forever. Once they know that they are expecting, they begin to count down the months, weeks, days and even hours when they will be physically separated from their baby. 

And no parent no matter how much they love their child wants to live with him as a toddler for twenty years. You want your child to grow, play outside, have friends, go to school, get a career and become independent. No parent wants to see their child in diapers for the rest of their lives. So, what does this mean? It means the relationship between parents and their children is a "leaving relationship". It is unlike the relationship between a husband and his wife which is a "cleaving relationship”. There is more to be said about this but for our purpose today, we can see where this is leading us. Children mature with time and become independent from their parents. And when they become independent, it means they will begin to make decisions independent from their parents and the way they used to honour and obey their parents naturally takes a new form.

When children are young, impressionable, and in their formative years, that is when they are expected to heed every word their parents say. But it is different when say a son has married and now heads his own family. The role of the parent becomes an advisory one and it will not be imperative for the son to take any advice from the parents to the tee. He can take it or leave it. It is not disobedience and this is a major challenge to many of the cultures in Southern Africa and perhaps beyond because we see that most cultures are structured in such a way that the father not only heads his own household but that of his children as well. The man does not really “leave his father and mother”. 

Even the women become mothers of a whole clan and no decision is passed by their married children without their consent. Another example, seeing the challenges faced by many believers in their marriages, we taught about the difference between a mother and one's wife in one region of Southern Africa and said “your mother is not your wife and your wife is most definitely not your mother, and because these relationships are very important they should not be confused or mixed up especially when one is a believer”. Your mother plays a very important role that your wife cannot and will never play in your life, and the opposite is true that your wife plays a very special role which your mother cannot and was not designed by God to play. Remember parents have a one-flesh commitment relationship with each other just as their married children have an equally one-flesh commitment relationship with their spouses. 

Now our host pastor told us privately that the teaching about the different roles helped to show people why there has been so many divorces in their villages. Sons would normally be told by their parents to divorce their wives willy-nilly if their parents felt their wives were interfering with the way they were getting help from their sons or if they were just not happy with something about her. While there are other reasons parents demand and command these, it goes without saying that obeying such a command is not the kind of respect the Bible propounds. A command like this goes against the word of God and it is not disobedience, disrespect or a dishonour to parents when a son decides and says no to their demands [Acts 4:19-20]. The word of God is above everyone and everything and when it says no one should put these two asunder [Matthew 19:6] that includes the parents also. 

Children are gifts from God [Psalm 127:3-5] and they should be celebrated as such. Equally, a prudent wife comes from the Lord [Proverbs 19:14] and a wife should be celebrated also and most definitely, parents should be honoured [Ephesians 6:2]. All these should be done but not in a way which dishonours God. I beseech parents therefore to not ask their children to choose between them and their children’s spouses. Such relationships are not “either/or” relationships but “this/and” kind of relationships. Mothers must be loved deeply for the angels and models they are to their children and wives should be loved immensely for the joy and oneness they share with the sons. Either one of them is special in their own way and each is a gift from God. The relationship with these two people is a non-negotiable and you only bring trouble and sadness in your life if you do not see these relationships that way. 

When you have raised your children in a godly way trust God that they will not depart from the way of the Lord. When you have trained them and admonished then in the way of the Lord, they will honour God and respect their parents. There are exceptions to this of cause but this is what generally happens. What if we have rebellious children? I think it is Spurgeon who said something like, “we should never give up on our children but we ought to pray for them until the day they breathe their last”. Parents need to daily intercede for their children and seek the blessing of God upon them. It is part of the discipleship process. Now God demands our compete obedience to Him and our relationship with Him is not a "leaving relationship” like the one that parents have with their children. With God we want to grow to become more and more like Him. We grow in our humility and obedience. Remember the Lord Jesus said “He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh” [Matthew 19:4-6, ESV]. 

I am from a Shona tribe and there is a Shona saying which goes, vabereki vako ndivo Mwari wako wekutanga which literally means “your parents are your first god". It is clearly an absurd thing to say or suggest because we do not have second or third gods. There is only but one God. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:" [Deuteronomy 6:4, KJV]. So, if parents are viewed as gods, they inadvertently become idols in their children's lives and many are threatened by their parents that they will be cursed if they disagree with them or the elders. This may be one of the reasons there is so much ancestral worship in many Southern African cultures. 

Ancestors also become mediators in my Shona culture where you hear some thank God and their ancestors saying, “Totenda Mwari nevadzimu vedu”. This effectively takes away the mediatory role of Christ and the parents become the link between their children and God. This may also have caused the elders to go unquestioned in situations where they are wrong. But the Bible informs us otherwise. Paul instructs young Timothy how to go about these kinds of relationships. He says, “Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; The elder women as mothers; the younger woman as sisters, with all purity” [1 Timothy 5:1-2, KJV]. He is not talking about a church elder in this context but and elder in terms of age. Timothy is to entreat older men as fathers when they have done wrong by humbly beseeching and encouraging them as he would a father. That is a way to honour parents.

So, what am I saying? Firstly, I am saying the primary calling of parenthood is to disciple your children to be disciples of Jesus. God is seeking godly offspring, a people trained in the ways of the Lord in your children. That is the first and most important role of parenting and as parents do that Children are to obey their parents in the Lord, for this is right [Ephesians 6:1]. They must know and learn that parents are representative authority figures in their lives and the parents’ authority is derived authority. The authority that parents have point children to the ultimate authority of God and the only way we can have that is if parents look at the Bible where we have godly models and not to the various and ever evolving cultures. We have met too many Christian leaders who think that Christian leadership is a way to become custodians of their own local cultures. No, Christian leaders are there to lead by example and to show their children the way of the Lord. Parenthood is evangelistic and a place for discipleship training and no parent can say they are not called to evangelise and disciple. 

Secondly, Paul talks about honoring parents and says “Honor your father and mother” [this is the first commandment with a promise]. Now this is where we see another challenge. Though parents love and invest their time, money, energy, and resources in their children, they do that in order for their children to become independent of them. And by independent I do not mean a severing of the parent-child relationship but what I mean is, when a child lives under the roof of his or her parents, he or she is obliged to obey their every word and under normal circumstances, a grown-up child is expected to leave the nest and start making their own decisions that are not coerced or directed by his or her parents. 

The Bible says this is the first commandment with a promise. What promise can that be except “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land?” [Ephesians 6:3, KJV]. Paul takes this from Exodus 20:12 where the Israelites were journeying to the promised land that God was going to give them. It was a promise of a long life on this earth yes, but that was not everything the Lord wanted to teach them. The land was a pointer to the new Heaven and the new earth we shall live eternally with Christ. Look, what will it profit you if you live a hundred and twenty years on this earth but be damned at the end? It is long life isn’t it? But the most blessed, only righteous person to ever live died on the cross at the age of thirty-three yet He honoured and respected His earthly parents, the elders and loved everyone. 

This shows us that the ultimate blessing for our children is their salvation and as parents we need to use the word of God to bring them up because the word saves and the word cleanses [1 Peter 1:23, John 15:3]. These are things no single culture can do. The obedience to parents that the Bible talks about is not submission to our own local cultural practices because our cultures do not extend life on earth and they most certainly do not give eternal life to anyone or give a way of escape from the judgment to come. It is only when a child has been discipled and admonished in the Lord that his or her heart is transformed and receives newness of life in Christ Jesus. What a great promise of eternal life given to children who have been nurtured in the way of the Lord. Children who obey their parents in the Lord.

And thirdly, different from the young, older children honor and respect their parents by taking care of them when they are in any kind of need. Paul says, “But if any widow has children or nephews, let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents: for that is good and acceptable before God” [1 Timothy 5:4, KJV]. You can see that God is present whenever children honor their parents this way because it is acceptable before Him. And of cause, one does not have to wait until their parents become widows or widowers and this is why Paul says a few verses later; “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” [ESV]. The Christian faith is a faith in which children love and honour their parents. The seriousness of it is seen in that if one does not show charity to his parents or relatives, he is likened to an unbeliever. His faith is said to be dead faith [James 2;18.20.26]. Older children also honour their parents when they consult and seek wisdom from them. They honor them by speaking highly of them, visiting them, and remembering their special days, memories and occasions. Godly parenting not only turns the hearts of the father to their children but it turns whole families’ hearts to God.

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About The Author:

Pastor Sam Machacka is co-founder of Brink Ministries Southern Africa. A wonderful colleague and good friend. Equipping Pastors and Church leaders in Southern Africa. He grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe with his beautiful wife Mildred and they are blessed with three lovely children namely Samantha, Munashe and Joshua but they are now serving as missionaries in Malawi since August 2018

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