Courtship 101 | In-Laws

Introduction

As a young couple transitions from courtship, to engagement, to the wedding day, it might begin to dawn upon them, “These are the people I will spend my holidays with.” If everyone is walking in Christian charity, that should be a joyful thought. If not, it’ll be like swallowing a ghost pepper whole. Your gut will be in knots.

The Text 

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. 

Ephesians 6:1-4

It’s All Relative

The world is, by nature, relative. Not in the way Einstein meant. Rather, the world is orderly. The order which we see flows from the first doctrine which the Scriptures give to us: in the beginning God created (Gen. 1:1). The Creator/creature distinction is the first indication that the cosmos is not just a bucket full of sludge that just happens to slop out into slightly different shapes and sizes. Rather, the creation narrative indicates there are greater and lesser things. 

The egalitarian thinks of each person’s birth like launching a video game. We all start at the same level. Society’s job is to make sure everyone gets to pass every level. But this is just not the way the world is.

You are born in the middle of a grand story. The Bible teaches us that in being born a child is obligated to his parents. They are, to use a word that has fallen out of fashion, superior to him. He is younger, smaller, weaker, and knows quite a bit less than them. But he also is born in relation to siblings. He may be the firstborn and therefore superior in that respect. He is born with accompanying responsibilities to any other siblings that come along. Other examples are being born into a position of wealth, talent, or influence.

Paul’s instructions to children and fathers reveals this reality of relative duties. You are not born autonomous, nor can you walk through this life with autonomous indifference. Children are born with obligations to their parents, and when someone becomes a parent certain obligations are also laid upon them. All of this is the case because God made the world ex nihilo.

Heavy-Handed Superiors

What duties does God assign to parents? Paul explains that one of the principle duties of a father to his children is to not do something: don’t provoke your children to wrath. Instead, raise them up in the full counsel and teaching of the Lord. This echoes the wisdom of Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

When it comes to preparing our children for marriage, parents must recognize two things. First, as a child nears adulthood, the temptation to grasp them tighter arises. Second, this temptation arises because parents forget they are training their child in the way he should go. 

You train them up in the way so that in adulthood they do not depart. Part of their faithfulness will be in continuing to honor you. But if you insist on continuing to treat them as if they are toddlers, you will soon find that you’ve exasperated your grown child. A grabby parent reveals their own insecurity in how they did in raising a child to not go astray. The tighter you try to grab, the more the child slips through your fingers. 

These sorts of parents fail to see that their opinion on how to best load the dishwasher wasn’t requested. If they persist at always offering unsolicited advice, they’ll increasingly find their grown kids sheepishly wandering to the other end of the house. Biblical law prohibits superiors from undue correction of criminals (Deu. 25:3). How much more should parents refrain from sticking their nose in their grown children’s approach to lawn maintenance, the sort of diapers they use, and where to bank?

Waffly Inferiors

Our culture gets the “ick” from discussing things like superiors and inferiors. But this really is inescapable. Thus, grown Christian children need to be careful in how they adjust their relationship to their parents as they enter married life. During a courtship, one of the things a young couple needs to be doing is discussing what sort of household they hope to form. Two separate households are combining to form a new third household. There are numerous ways in which this process can fester resentments that last for years.

Young Christian couples mistake their duty for honoring their parents as a duty to copy and paste every tradition and custom of both sets of parents. But in so doing they begin to abdicate their own duty towards their own children. The duty to honor is not lifted from off their shoulders, but strict obedience is. After all, when a father gives his daughters hand in marriage, there is a real transfer of true authority to the young husband. Where the father could have required his daughter to load the dishwasher the day before the wedding, he doesn’t have that authority any longer (Ps. 45:10). She is still to honor her parents, just as her husband must honor his. But their honor transforms into economic bustle.

Paul’s instructions to Timothy regarding widows helps us understand this (Cf. 1 Tim. 5). A widow who has living relatives (there’s that pesky word again) should be economically honored by those relatives; just as Paul says that ministers should receive double honor (meaning financial support). The honor in view is principally economic in nature. Meaning, able to support them in their old age.

A young husband should establish the jurisdictional boundaries of his new family (Ez. 18:19-20). Imagine a business that manufactures some widget, and in the course of production, some inventive line worker realizes that some of the excess material could be repurposed for another product. If the owner loved the idea, they could form a new business. This new arrangement might retain some level of overlap with the first business, but new lines of authority would also necessarily form. Many young men fail their wife by failing to provide both her family and his family with where the fences are.

10 Maxims for Healthy In-Law Relationships

1. Odds are that you will be someone’s in-laws. Do to your in-laws as you desire your child’s spouse to do to you.
2. Parents, although superior in age, experience, and perhaps wisdom, must view themselves as counselors not dictators for their grown kids.
3. Grown children must avoid grumbling about parents; especially if they’ve failed to directly address the concerns in question.
4. Grown children must be active not passive in communicating about boundaries, plans, and choices. Make it clear when you are asking for counsel that you might take a different direction should Biblical wisdom dictate it.
5. Parents should not be offended if, in giving counsel, their grown children opt to take a different course. They should trust that if they’ve been obedient in training their children in the way they should go (i.e. covenant faithfulness), that the Spirit of Jesus will keep their children in that path of faithfulness. 
6. Communication in both directions should be marked by love’s duty to “hope all things”. 
7. If there is sin, and there will be, it should either be covered or confronted in love. Depending on the sin’s severity, other relations might take precedent over family government (i.e. the elders, the police, the company’s board). 
8. You should always never use “always” or “never” in an argument.
9. In a conflict, in person is preferable (3 Jn. 13-14). Also, strive for brevity in written or in person correspondence. Don’t try to tackle all the problems at once. Set aside an hour, have a hard stop, and try to address just one part of the problem. 
10. If conflicts arise, there may be wisdom in some measure of relational distance; but this should not be put in place without a clear path of restoration.

Long Life

The fifth commandment holds forth a promise: length of days. This isn’t a secret anti-aging recipe. Rather, this promise invites you to look to the mystery of adoption. God has adopted you through Christ. He calls you to honor Him in all your relationships, upward and downward. A child first learns obedience to their parents, and this is God’s strategy for training your kids to honor Him. A people who honor God their Father receive an inheritance of everlasting life in the halls of heavenly Jerusalem.

Charge & Benediction

As we’ve considered courtship and romance over the last several weeks, two things should stand out to you. God delights to give good gifts to His people. But we must not let our gaze linger on the gifts, but let our eyes be drawn to delight in the Giver of those gifts.

Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work. Amen.
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17