Through The Bible in a Year - October 7, 2026

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh... let the wife see that she respects her husband…. Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” Ephesians 5:31, 33; 6:4

Before the four verses on parenting in the book of Ephesians, an entire chapter is devoted to marriage. That is not an accident of order. The most important gift any parent can give a child is a secure relationship with the Lord; the second most important is the example of a husband and wife who genuinely love one another. Children learn how to face life, how to relate to the opposite gender, and how to experience and express the gospel — largely by watching the love in their parents’ relationship.

When this priority of relationships shifts, even for the good intention of loving children well, the spiritual foundations of the whole family destabilize. For example, when a marriage is struggling, it can be tempting to turn to a child as a comfort and confidant instead of working things out with a spouse. A friend once confided that, during a hard season in his mother’s marriage, she began sharing her frustrations with him rather than her husband. Though he was an adolescent at the time, he began advising his mother how to relate to his own father. Not surprisingly, the marriage suffered, and the father-son relationship became permanently strained. Children were never designed to carry the emotional weight of the strains in their parents’ marriage.

Marriages will have rough patches; every single one does. Yet, what best sustains a family, is not turning to children for counsel or consolation but returning to God for forgiveness and help. Marriages and children are healthiest when spouses keep working on their relationship to provide the security and example children need to understand how the grace of God claims them – and will help and heal family relationships in their own future. Ongoing forgiveness, selflessness, and love between a husband and wife are the most life-transforming sermon children watch every day.

RESPOND: In what ways are your children currently watching you love — or fail to love — your spouse well?

Is there any way, even a subtle one, that you have leaned on a child emotionally in a way that should be directed toward your spouse instead?

With the realities of your children’s spiritual needs in mind, take a moment now to consider one deliberate step to “treasure your spouse in God's way” — an act of affection, patience, or forgiveness your children can see. They will be spiritually strengthened by it. So will you.

PRAYER: Father, thank You for the model of Your own steadfast, forgiving love. Help me love my spouse in a way that gives our children security, and keep me from ever asking a child to carry the relational weight that you designed for the bonds of marriage. Let our home show the world, and our children, the heart of Christ. In Jesus' name, amen.