My Dear Brother, as long as a child is of the household actually in relationship with their parents, the duty of obedience remains. If a man is married, he begins a new house, and is the head of it, leaves his father and mother. But as long as he or she is of the house, obedience is the duty, as the relationship remains. “In the Lord” is the limit and character of the obedience. If I had a Jewish or heathen parent who commanded me to deny Christ, I could not do it. It is not “in the Lord.” So if I was desired anything which practically denied Christ, I could not do it “in the Lord.” if the parent be merely unjust in ways, and no duty be compromised, I believe the part of children to be patience and casting themselves on the Lord. I can suppose a child engaged in a positive duty, which the parents in such case would have no right to cause the child to break through. “In the Lord” has nothing to do with the character of the parents, but the conduct of the child; otherwise it would absolve from all obedience the child of heathen or Jewish parents. The obedience is “in the Lord.”
Your affectionate brother in Christ, J. N. D.
Dear Mr. Editor,
I shall be much obliged by any of your readers who knows Hebrew better than myself, or has studied the point, to tell me what is the force of åéÈìÈò êÅÌôÇëÀì in Lev. 16:1010But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:10). It will require attention to the force of ìÇò with ãÅôÄë which I suspect is not always justly given in the English translation.