My Dear Brother,—As long as children are 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 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 to do 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 path of a child to be patience and casting himself 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 breakthrough.
“In the Lord” has nothing to do with the character of the parents, but the character 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.