Who has seen ‘Pinnochio’? Many older people saw the Walt Disney version released in 1940. Younger ones haven’t seen it, I’d bet. It’s too old, and not CGI.
Pinocchio is a marionette puppet made by the wood carver, Geppetto. Geppetto longs to have a real son. And Geppetto wishes on a star that Pinocchio was a real boy. He is unexpectedly granted part of this wish by the Blue Fairy. The Blue Fairy brings Pinocchio to life, but he is not a real boy yet. Pinocchio must prove himself worthy of being a real boy.
The theology of Pinocchio is ‘become a real boy by your good works’. Pinocchio is given life, but is still only a wooden puppet. He must be good to get to become a real boy. And that, of course, is the theology of this world. Be a good boy, and God will let you into heaven.[1]
And we wonder why so many have a works righteousness understanding of getting to heaven? It comes with Disney and Pinocchio, and Santa Clause’.
“He's making a list
And checking it twice
Gonna find out
Who's naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!”
Santa Claus, and Pinocchio, its all the same. Salvation by good works. It’s all terribly mistaken. But it is the theology of the world.[2]
But, as is typical of Disney, the story of Pinocchio can’t end sad.[3] Pinocchio must a happy ending. Despite his lies, and his nose growing, Pinocchio does really become a real boy.
However, the story of Pinocchio was not a Disney original. Walt Disney purchased the rights to produce an adaptation of the 1883 children’s story, originally written in Italian. But the author Carlo Collodi’s original story was a tragedy. In the book version of Pinocchio, as soon as he was made, Pinocchio laughs derisively into his creator’s face, and steals Geppetto’s wig. The earliest version, 1881, does not end with Pinocchio becoming a real boy. It concludes with the puppet’s execution by hanging. Yes, that’s right. Pinocchio does not become a real boy in the end. Pinocchio is hung till he is dead for his many sins.[4]
And some of us might perhaps understandably say, ‘excellent’![5] At last some discipline. I want to see some punishment! Not so good for a Disney movie, however. And that’s why the original publishers required Collodi to resurrect Pinocchio in the 1883 edition of the book. And that’s why Walt Disney made Pinocchio loveable, gentle, winsome one, if niave and easily led, who ends up saving himself by his good works and becoming a real boy.
Collodi actually didn’t have any children. Collodi loathed children, especially boys. A writer of a world famous children’s book who hated children! There are weirder things, I guess.
Kinship God has built into the structure of our world the relationship of children and parents. You cannot escape the relationship. All of you are, or would have been, children. All of you have parents. And most of you are parents yourselves, and have had your own children.
Parents come in two basic varieties. There is the mother type of parent, and the father type. Your father begot you, your mother bore you and gave you birth. Together, your mother and father produced you. Out of the overflow of their love – at least at one point – you were created and came to be.
Ultimately, God gave each one of us life. But in through a man and woman coming together, humans become the agents of giving new human life. Proverbs 23:22, listen to your father, who gave you life. Proverbs 23:25, may she who gave you birth rejoice. We humans who have children get to be stakeholders in procreation. And because we beget the next generation and give them birth, we are invested in them. We are stakeholders. We care about the next generation. They are from our bodies. They are our flesh and blood. They are your kin.
So we want to do better than good King Hezekiah. Hezekiah was a righteous King. But he was shortsighted. Hezekiah was told of the disaster that will befall Israel in coming generations. He was warned of the coming destruction of Jerusalem itself, of the exile to Babylon, and of the castration of his own descendants to serve the Babylonian palace. Then the good King responded:
"The word of the LORD you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "There will be peace and security in my lifetime." (Isaiah 39:8; cf 2 Kings 20:19)
Stuff the next generation! It will be OK during my lifetime. I will have peace and safety. Someone else will have to pick up the pieces.
No. We care. We talk about ‘intergenerational equity’, commonly known as ‘not spending the kid’s inheritance’. We want justice for the elderly, and rightly get upset about ‘elder abuse’. So parents and children are bound to each other. Proverbs chapter 17 verse 6 says:
Children's children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children (NIV)
There is no way around it. It’s the way God made the world. Parents are bound to children and children are bound to parents. Your grandkids are your crown. And your parents are your pride. That’s why you love your kids and grandkids, and your honour your mother and father.
And the bible says that parents are to look after children, and children are to look after parents. So Paul says that the children or family of a widow are to look after their mother. 1 Timothy 5:4 says that children or grandchildren who claim to be Christian ‘should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.’
Moreover, in 1 Timothy 5:8:
If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
There is a verse for you oldies. Yay, see you have to look after me when I’m old. Proverbs 23 verse 22, do not despise your mother when she is old. (NIV)
But Paul also says that parents are to provide for children. 2 Corinthians 12:14 says that ‘children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.’ (NIV)
There’s a verse for you kids. Come on, mum and dad, are you saving up for me? It is the essence of fatherhood to provide for the empty mouth and outstretched hand. When your teenager’s hand is outstretched, you are blessed with the Godlike privilege of fatherhood. It is the very essence of fatherhood to give and sustain and foster the life of his offspring. It is at the heart of the mother to nurture and nourish the life she produces.
But we must understand that parenthood only occurs in a fallen world. Parenthood was not established in the garden, during humanity’s innocence. Parenthood was prepared for in the garden, but not experienced before the fall. It is only after the fall and God’s punishment that Adam names his wife Eve. In Greek, she is Zoey, in Hebrew, she is Eve. Because she would become the mother of all living (Genesis 3:20). So all human life is conceived outside the garden.
And that means every child born into this world is sinful – except one. One child was holy from conception – our Lord Jesus Christ But, as a consequence of original sin, it can be said of each of us: ‘Surely I was sinful from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5) Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies (Psalm 58:3). And that is us. We too are sinful, and wicked, even from birth. You are sinful. Your parents and grandparents are sinful. Your children and grandchildren are sinful. They deserve nothing from God.
So we must say with Paul, ‘God has bound all men over to disobedience’. And that includes us in the womb, in our infancy and childhood. Every inclination of our hearts is evil from childhood (Genesis 8:21; cf 6:5).[6] Flesh begets flesh. And sinful flesh beget sinful flesh. And that is the story of scripture. Even within those who find grace with God, the great heroes like Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Joseph, Samuel, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah, we find testimony to their sinfulness, both theirs and their children. All family life occurs with fallen parents and fallen children.
And here is the even more serious issue. We knowingly bring our children into a world of difficulty, suffering, sickness and death. Moreover, we don’t have a specific word that each of our children will be saved. We pray to that end. We beg God to save our children, to give them faith in Jesus Christ and his cross and resurrection. The promise is for us and our children, yes. But only God can go before and give them faith. So we make our plea to God’s merciful character. But ultimately, our children are in God’s hands, not ours. Our arm is too short to save.
That is why having children, starting a family, is a political and religious act of hope. Having kids is from one point of view a reckless act. You risk an unknown future by having children. No, it is worse than that. Experience tells us our children are born to suffer and die. We knowingly bear and beget our children into a world of sin, suffering and death.
I can’t see why an atheist would want to have children. The only reasons must be selfish reasons. I need someone to look after me when I’m old. I want to have the experience of children, it will enrich me. Umm, I didn’t really think about at the time.
But for the Christian, we actually have children in spite of suffering and death, in spite of the risks, because we know God is good. We are making a decision in the face of death that there will be human life. The act of having and nurturing children is an act in defiance of suffering and death. And ultimately, the act of having children for the Christian says to death: ‘The grave will not consume these children. For these children, these humans, have an eternal soul. Each one is an individual creation by God. And they will rise again on the last day. Their lives matter so much that the God of the universe will judge their eternal destiny’. So the act of having children is an act of hope.
Having children for Eve, our first mother, was not just a lifestyle decision. 'I really want to be a mum, they are so cute'. Eve did not say this. She did not know this. She actually had children to be saved. It was her only hope of salvation, was to become a mother. The salvation promised Eve will only come through childbearing. She and her family will be saved through childbearing (1 Timothy 2:15). For God cursed the snake with these words in Genesis 3:15:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. (NIV)
Her seed, the woman’s offspring, will fatally wound the serpent. But the serpent will harm this Son of Man, this offspring of the woman. And the story of the New Testament is that this offspring of the woman will be God’s Son, born of woman, born under the law, will redeem those under law, so that they might receive the full rights as sons (Galatians 4:4). The Son of God becomes the Son of Man to make the Sons of Men into the Sons of God. So the birth of a child is a joyous opportunity.
We Christians are people of hope. We look beyond death to resurrection. When we have hope, we say God is bigger than death and sin. We say that our children are not merely born or begotten to endure suffering and death. There is redemption, and eternal life, and peace, that we can enjoy with our children, and all that have gone before us, and all that come after us, through faith in Christ.
But not only is there the probability of suffering and death for our children. Sadly, there is also the shadow that our children might reject Jesus Christ in the end. And so after death, we fear an eternal hell, for our children, if they reject Christ.
No one knows God’s judgment about any other human, even our children. What we are told is: ‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.’ And so we want to pass on to our children faith in Christ. Our Faith in Christ, and the message of the Gospel, is the most precious inheritance we can give to our children. God has given us our oneness in marriage so that we might have godly offspring, godly seed, that they might spend eternity with God (Malachi 2). The promise of salvation is for us and our children (Acts 2). The children of a believer is holy (1 Corinthians 7). And the children of believers have great benefits and great obligations.[7]
Most of us inherit the houses in which we live. We live in houses we did not build. We didn’t build the dam, or the roads, or the houses. It was gifted to us, given over as an inheritance. We stand on the shoulders of our fathers and mothers.
So we find this command, the fifth commandment, to ancient Israel: ‘Honour your Father and mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16). Anyone who attacks or curses or even persistently disobeys his father or mother must be put to death (Exodus 21:15, 17; Leviticus 20:9; 21:18-19; 27:16; Proverbs 20:20; 28:24)
But under the Old Covenant, the parents also had obligations. The parents had to teach their children God’s word. Teach them to your children and to their children after them (Deuteronomy 4:9). They were to take the covenant requirements and ‘Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.’ (Deuteronomy 6:7) So one generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts. (Psalm 145:4 NIV)
So we come to our verses in Colossians 3:20-21. And we see parallel mutual obligations.
First, children are addressed.
Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing in the Lord.[8] (NIV)
It seems this is addressed to dependent children, those under age who live under their parent’s roof. The obedience extends to both the mother and the father. It’s not, oh that’s just mum. The mum is to be obeyed, as well as the dad. And if you know what’s good for you, maybe you should obey your mum even more than your dad. And it is in everything. In the things that you do not like. And in the things that you do like. It is not in anything sinful. So if your mum or dad say you must renounce Jesus or lie on your tax return, you must disobey them. But they are the very rare exceptions.
Adulthood is not just when you turn 18, as wonderful a milestone as that is. Adulthood is when you take on adult responsibilities. And your parents desperately want to send you out into the world to rule it for yourselves as adults. We parents want you to launch into life. Psalm 127 describes children as arrows in the hands of a warrior. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. We want to fire you off into the world, to send you out, to rule it and work it. We can only do so much – both for you, and for the world. But God has given the world to you, too. You will honour us out there by doing the right, God honouring thing, in the situation God puts you in. We want you either to serve God as a single Christian person, fully devoted to the Lord Jesus and in single minded service of him as you work in his world, if that is your gifting and what God calls you to, or that one day you will leave us to be united to your wife or husband to start your own family. And we parents want you to do this with faith in Christ. So please obey us, now. We love you. And while we are not all knowing or experts in everything, we have experience, and have seen a bit more life than you.
But that is not the only reason you are called to obey. Colossians 3:20 says that your obedience, your listening and doing what your parents say, is pleasing in the Lord. You through faith can put a smile on God’s face. You by your decisions can please the Lord Jesus. And so think of that Godward reason to obey.
But let me give you another reason to obey that comes from Ephesians 6:1-3.[9] That is, if you obey your parents, life will go well for you. For the fifth commandment of the 10 commandments is the first command with a promise ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live a long time in the land that God is giving you. If you be rebellious to authority, life will actually be pretty bad for you. But if you can obey authority, and at this stage, your parents, life will be more joyful than burdensome.
Now we turn to parents. And particularly fathers are addressed. Colossians chapter 3 verse 21:
Fathers do not embitter your children or they will become discouraged.[10] (NIV)
Fathers are particularly told not to provoke or irritate their children. I am a father. It is possible to be an annoying dad. It is possible to annoy kids by nagging them or deriding their efforts. It is possible to never be pleased with anything that they do. We must not make our children bitter by excessive harshness or unfairness or provoke them to anger. Other ways of course, are not keeping our word, or being violent to them.
We know that the damage us fathers can do runs deep in our children. Our harsh disapproval can stay with our sons for years. Our daughters will always see us as the first model of how a man should treat them.
And so Paul’s command has a purpose. Do not be harsh and aggressive and cause bitterness and provoke your children to anger, because they might become discouraged. Children must not have their hope and life and vibrancy crushed out of them. It is not our job as fathers to teach them about the rough side of life by being the rough side of life for them. Just because life might not have turned out as we wanted for us, doesn’t mean we have to make our family, and our kids, suffer. Our job is to encourage, not to beat them down. Yes, us father’s must shape and mould them. But the spark and life in our children must not be snuffed out. Their initiative and little hearts must not be squashed with meanness and grumpiness. Having a hard taskmaster of a father who can never be pleased is no blessing. It is an awful sin. And we father’s must watch whether it is our words or actions that are making our sons and daughters depressed or discouraged or despondent. Our job is to instill that wonderful Christian virtue ‘hope’.
‘Hope’. There are good things ahead, that God has promised us. Yes, there are dangers that must be navigated. But God is a good God, who gives us blessing upon blessing now, grace upon grace now, both in his world and in his word, and in the world to come, eternal life.
In Ephesians 6:4, Paul gives us Fathers a positive duty. And that is to grow up or raise up our children in the training and instruction of the Lord.[11] We are to bring them to church, pray for them and with them, read the bible with them, talk to them about the things of God. I’ve dropped the ball a bit in reading the bible with my littler ones. But we need to be people who aren’t hypocrites. That is, our kids know Jesus and God stuff really does matter, and that we are living this out ourselves.
At some point, you and I have failed. We might have failed our parents. We might have failed our kids. Family life for us is only experienced outside the garden.
But the wonderful hope each one of us has is this. To those who receive Jesus Christ, God gives us the right to become children of God. Psalms 27:10 says Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me. And this is true today. Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the sons of God.
Disney’s ‘Pinocchio’ story is a story of self-salvation. Pinocchio becomes a real boy because he hears that Geppetto has gone looking for him, and got swallowed by a whale. Pinocchio goes to the bottom of the sea in search for Geppetto, and rescues him, but is killed doing it. Pinocchio’s sacrifice for his father is rewarded with resurrection, this time not as a puppet, but as a real boy. [12]
How different is the bible account of salvation! Becoming a child of God is not the reward for our good works, for us proving ourselves worthy. Becoming a child of God is a gift for those who receive Jesus Christ. In fact, it is not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. We don't deserve do become children of God by our sacrificial death. Jesus Christ won us the free gift of becoming God’s children, by dying for us.
[1] The message of the original Pinocchio was this, spoken by the blue fairy at the conclusion of the book. Boys who minister tenderly to their parents and assist them in their misery and infirmities, are deserving of great praise and affection, even if they cannot be cited as examples of obedience and good behaviour. Try and do better in the future and you will be happy. (http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2011/10/carlo_collodi_s_pinocchio_why_is_the_original_pinocchio_subjecte.html)
[2] ‘The moral of the film is that if you are brave and truthful, and you listen to your conscience, you will find salvation. Collodi’s moral is that you if you behave badly and do not obey adults, you will be bound, tortured, and killed’: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2011/10/carlo_collodi_s_pinocchio_why_is_the_original_pinocchio_subjecte.html
[3] For most of the film, Pinocchio is in deep trouble. Pinocchio’s nose grows longer when he tells lies. Disaster befalls Pinocchio’s on Pleasure Island. Pinocchio is lured there with the promise of endless fun. You can be as naughty as you like on Pleasure Island. So Pinocchio drinks beer and smokes. It’s all great fun, except the magic of Pleasure Island begins to turn Pinocchio into a donkey.
[4] Pinocchio’s enemies, the Fox and the Cat, bind his arms, pass a noose around his throat, and hang him from the branch of an oak tree: …a tempestuous northerly wind began to blow and roar angrily, and it beat the poor puppet from side to side, making him swing violently, like the clatter of a bell ringing for a wedding. And the swinging gave him atrocious spasms…. His breath failed him and he could say no more. He shut his eyes, opened his mouth, stretched his legs, gave a long shudder, and hung stiff and insensible. The end.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinocchio; http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2011/10/carlo_collodi_s_pinocchio_why_is_the_original_pinocchio_subjecte.html).
[5] ‘Though Collodi may have set out to satisfy his young readers, it is ultimately their parents who have the last, maniacal laugh’: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2011/10/carlo_collodi_s_pinocchio_why_is_the_original_pinocchio_subjecte.html.
[6] NIV: Wenham, Hamilton, ESV: ‘youth’
[7] A great problem for some Christians is intergenerational sin and punishment. God says he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers. So God describes himself to Moses, not only as the God who maintains love to thousands, but also Yahweh ‘does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation’. (Exodus 34:7) And for us in our individualist society, that is offensive and unjust. But what if the punishment spoken of continues because the sin continues? Suppose the there is a direct line between the lifestyle of the parent, and the lifestyle of the child. That is not unreasonable. Isn’t it possible that how the children are brought up and raised, and the punishment that is meted out upon them? And just as we receive from our parents good things, we also receive bad things. There is such a thing as social guilt, as well as individual guilt. It is a generally observed fact that children often share traits with their parents. They might copy their parents, or adopt their parents ways of thinking. And we know that peer pressure is powerful. So when peer pressure combines with intergenerational sin, what do we get? The Arab-Israeli conflict, whereby the Palestinians do not believe that Israel has a right to exist, and the Israeli’s believe the Palestinians are somehow subhuman. And this thinking continues from generation to generation. Humanly speaking, there is no hope for peace. Only if both sides come to Jesus Christ will they be able to put away their animosity. If this is the human situation, it is not surprising that in the Old Testament, Yahweh commanded the wiping out, the clear felling, of the Canaanites prior to Israel entering into the land. We might not like it. But God is only doing by the sword of the ancient Israelite what he did by the flood in the time of Noah, or by what we think of as ‘natural death’ in every other generation. For God by his law sought to direct his sinful people how to become a pure community to be his priests in the world. And this involved completely irradicating sinfulness, both within and without. The integrity of the community was more important than mercy to the individual. That also included the infants of the wicked nations. They too had to be irradicated, because of God’s purpose. To create a special people, Israel, who might be a light to the nations. And sadly within those infants was the seed of those sins for future generations of God’s people, as the books of Judges and Samuel and Kings show (eg Deuteronomy 7:1-6). Outside of Israel, there needed to be the clear felling of whole nations opposed to God.
[8] Colossians 3:20 Τὰ τέκνα, ὑπακούετε τοῖς γονεῦσιν κατὰ πάντα, τοῦτο γὰρ εὐάρεστόν ἐστιν ἐν κυρίῳ.
[9] Τὰ τέκνα, ὑπακούετε τοῖς γονεῦσιν ὑμῶν [ἐν κυρίῳ]· τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν δίκαιον. 2 τίμα τὸν πατέρα σου καὶ τὴν μητέρα, ἥτις ἐστὶν ἐντολὴ πρώτη ἐν ἐπαγγελίᾳ, 3 ἵνα εὖ σοι γένηται καὶ ἔσῃ μακροχρόνιος ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.
[10] Οἱ πατέρες, μὴ ἐρεθίζετε τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν, ἵνα μὴ ἀθυμῶσιν.
[11] Ephesians 6:4, Καὶ οἱ πατέρες, μὴ παροργίζετε τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν ἀλλ’ ἐκτρέφετε αὐτὰ ἐν παιδείᾳ καὶ νουθεσίᾳ κυρίου.
[12] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032910/synopsis?ref_=ttpl_pl_syn