# Ephesians 6.4 > Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them > up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4, > NASB95) Paul's single verse to fathers in the Ephesian household code. Two prohibitions implied behind one explicit one: do not exasperate. And one positive: raise them in *paideia* and *nouthesia* "of the Lord." Brief, dense, and load-bearing for the Christian doctrine of the household. ## Immediate context (±2 verses) **ASV** ([ASV](/codex/asv/)) > 2. Honor thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise), 3. that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. > > **4. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord.** > > 5. Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; 6. not in the way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; (Ephesians 6:2-6, ASV) **WEB** ([WEB](/codex/web/)) > 2. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with a promise: 3. “that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.” > > **4. You fathers, don’t provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.** > > 5. Servants, be obedient to those who according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as to Christ; 6. not in the way of service only when eyes are on you, as men pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; (Ephesians 6:2-6, WEB) **KJV** ([KJV](/codex/kjv/)) > 2. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) 3. That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. > > **4. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.** > > 5. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; 6. Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; (Ephesians 6:2-6, KJV) **YLT** ([YLT](/codex/ylt/)) > 2. honour thy father and mother, 3. which is the first command with a promise, 'That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live a long time upon the land.' > > **4. And the fathers! provoke not your children, but nourish them in the instruction and admonition of the Lord.** > > 5. The servants! obey the masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling, in the simplicity of your heart, as to the Christ; 6. not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as servants of the Christ, doing the will of God out of soul, (Ephesians 6:2-6, YLT) ## Setting - **Speaker:** Paul the Apostle, writing from imprisonment - **Audience:** the church at Ephesus, with the wider Asia-Minor circuit likely in view - **Location:** composed in Roman custody (most likely Rome, possibly Caesarea or Ephesus); addressed to Ephesus - **Time period:** composed c. AD 60-62 ## Theological reading The verse sits inside the Ephesian *Haustafel* (household code, 5:22-6:9), Paul's Christianized rewrite of the Greco-Roman *oikonomia* genre. In the surrounding pagan codes the father is the absolute *paterfamilias*; children, wives, and slaves are addressed as instruments. Paul keeps the address-by-station form and inverts its content. Each station gets a reciprocal obligation. Wives are addressed as moral agents, not property. Slaves are addressed as free in Christ, masters as also under a Master. And fathers, who in the surrounding culture were under no constraint at all in dealing with children, are given *two* obligations: a negative one (don't provoke to anger) and a positive one (raise them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord). The negative side, "do not provoke" (*me parorgizete*), is the single most counter-cultural word in the verse. Paul does not weaken paternal authority. He bends it. The father is *responsible for the child's wrath*. If the child is exasperated, the father is implicated. Roman law had no such category. The positive side has two technical terms. *Paideia* is the formative discipline (training, correction, even chastening) that shapes character; in the surrounding Hellenistic world it named a whole educational ideal. *Nouthesia* is admonition by word, correction-by-speaking. Paul brings the two together and qualifies them with the genitive "of the Lord." Christian parenting is not generic moral formation with Jesus added at the end. It is formation *whose content, motive, and method come from* the Lord. Note the parallel address to slaves (6:5) and to masters (6:9) in the immediate next breath. Paul will not let any in-house authority, paternal, marital, civil, economic, slip the leash of the Lordship of Christ. This is the doctrinal logic that closes the gap to the contemporary "Spare the Rod" objection: Paul's Christian discipline is precisely *not* unrestrained corporal severity but formation that aims at the child's good and is bounded by an explicit prohibition on provoking the child to wrath. See [Spare the Rod Objection Defeater](/codex/spare-the-rod-objection-defeater/) for the structured response. ## Key words - [G3962 - pater](/codex/g3962-pater/), *pater*, "father"; same word Jesus uses of God in the Lord's Prayer, conditioning Christian fatherhood. ## Theological themes - **Reciprocal authority.** Paternal authority is real; it is also bounded and accountable. - **Christian formation.** *Paideia* + *nouthesia* + "of the Lord." Content, motive, and method all under Christ. - **Anti-provocation rule.** Christian fatherhood is the only household-code tradition in antiquity that puts an explicit prohibition on the father's side. - **Household discipleship.** The home is the first catechism. ## Cross-references - [Colossians 3.21](/codex/colossians-3-21/), Paul's parallel: "Fathers, do not embitter your children, that they may not lose heart." - [Deuteronomy 6.6-7](/codex/deuteronomy-6-6-7/), the foundational household-catechesis text Paul echoes. - Proverbs 22:6, "train up a child in the way he should go." - [Hebrews 12.5-11](/codex/hebrews-12-5-11/), God's *paideia* of His children, the model. - [Matthew 18.6](/codex/matthew-18-6/), the severity of leading a child into sin. - [Ephesians 5.22](/codex/ephesians-5-22/), start of the household code Paul is building. ## See also - [Marriage](/codex/marriage/), the marriage doctrine the household code rests on. - [Faith-Based Parenting](/codex/faith-based-parenting/), applied page in the codex. - [Spare the Rod Objection Defeater](/codex/spare-the-rod-objection-defeater/), atheist objection answered with this verse as anchor. - Christology folder, Christ's Lordship as the controlling clause in "of the Lord." ## Quoted in **Arguments and defeaters:** - [Spare the Rod Objection Defeater](/codex/spare-the-rod-objection-defeater/) **Concepts:** - [Atheism](/codex/atheism/) - [Christianity](/codex/christianity/) - [Spare the Rod Objection](/codex/spare-the-rod-objection/) **Lexicon:** - [G3962 - pater](/codex/g3962-pater/) - [G5219 - hypakouo](/codex/g5219-hypakouo/) --- _Scripture quotations taken from the **New American Standard Bible®** (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by **The Lockman Foundation**. Used by permission. All rights reserved. [www.lockman.org](https://www.lockman.org)_ ## Why these four translations ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the **most literal English translations available** (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the **public domain in the United States**, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance. The four: - **[ASV](/codex/asv/)** (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition. - **[WEB](/codex/web/)** (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English. - **[KJV](/codex/kjv/)** (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base. - **[YLT](/codex/ylt/)** (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff. See [Bibles](/codex/bibles/) for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.