¹⁸ Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. ¹⁹ Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. ²⁰ Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. ²¹ Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.

Dwelling in our hearts, the Word of God should also affect the relationships with those who dwell in our homes. Wives should continually place themselves under the husband’s leadership. Unpopular as this teaching may be today, it is God’s formula for a marriage in which the Word of Christ dwells richly (vs. 16) and Christ is honored (vs. 17). “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9, see also Ephesians 5:22-24).

This does not mean the husband is the master and the wife is the slave. The husband is to love his wife with an agape or self-sacrificing kind of love, as Ephesians 5:25-33 spells out in detail. Husbands, on their side, must resist the temptation to bitterness—which seems an odd thing to say at this juncture. Why would a man become that way with his wife? The word translated bitter, is used in James, “Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?” (James 3:11). Some have suggested the concept of becoming irritable, incensed or provoked. The husband’s leadership, rather, should be like a fountain of fresh water, to which the wife would run for refreshing love, in contrast to a world that would treat her as little more than an object, one who can never measure up to its superficial expectations.

Children are to obey parents in all things. Whereas the women’s role is “fitting in the Lord,” the children’s role is “well-pleasing” to the Lord. Is that not the goal, to do everything in the name of Christ? And when men love their wives the way Christ loves the church, then this honors the Lord.

Fathers also reflect the Word of God dwelling in their lives in the way they treat their children. Of all the things that could be said, Paul zeroes in on one aspect, exasperating their children. Fathers can exasperate their children in many different ways: setting expectations too high, uncontrolled anger, being absent too much, being over bearing, controlling, by excessive teasing, physical, emotional or sexual abuse—all things that warp a child’s view of themselves and life. The word exasperate can be translated, to provoke, make resentful, irritate. Paul explains it as causing them to “lose heart” or become discouraged with life. The blame for this is laid at the feet of the father, not the children.