Just think what a great lesson this is! How many good works you have at hand in your own home with your own child who needs all such things as these like a hungry, thirsty, naked, poor, imprisoned, sick soul! O what a blessed marriage and home that would be with such parents! That home would indeed be a true church, a chosen cloister, yes, a paradise! It was of such places that the psalmist sang in Psalm 128[:1–4], “Blessed are they that fear God and walk in his commandments. You shall eat of the labor of your hands. On this account shall you be happy and all will go well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in your house, and your children like the young shoots of laden olive trees around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears God.” Where are such parents? Where are those who inquire after good works such as these? Nobody comes forward. Why? Because God has commanded these works! The flesh and the devil pull you away from these works. There is no pomp or show about them; therefore, we assume they are worth nothing. Husbands run to St. James, wives make vows to Our Lady. No one vows to train and teach himself and his child to honor God properly. Those whom God has commanded a man to keep in body and soul he leaves behind, and wants to serve God in some place or another, something that was never commanded. No bishop forbids and no preacher rebukes such a perverse practice. In fact, in the interests of their own covetousness the clergy endorse such practices. Every day they think up more and more pilgrimages, canonizations of saints, and indulgence fairs. May God have mercy on such blindness! (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.85-86).

5. Thus it is true, as men say, that parents could attain salvation by training their own children, even if they were to do nothing else. If parents do this by rightly training them to God’s service, they will indeed have their hands full of good works. For what are the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the alien if not the souls of your own children? With these God makes a hospital of your own house. He sets you over them as the hospital superintendent, to wait on them, to give them the food and drink of good words and works. [He sets you over them] that they may learn to trust God, to believe in him, to fear him, and to set their whole hope upon him; to honor his name and never curse or swear; to mortify themselves by praying, fasting, watching, working; to go to church, wait on the word of God, and observe the sabbath. [He sets you over them] that they may learn to despise temporal things, to bear misfortune without complaint, and neither fear death nor love this life.

… It has been said in reference to the other commandments that they are to be fulfilled in relation to faith, the chief work. It is the same in this instance. Nobody must think that the training and teaching of his children is sufficient in itself. It must be done in confidence of God’s favor. A man must have no doubt that he is well pleasing to God in what he is doing, and he should let work of this kind be nothing else but an expression and exercise of his faith. He should trust in God and look to him for blessings and a gracious will. Without faith of this kind no work is a genuine living work: it is neither good nor acceptable. Many heathen have brought their children up charmingly, but all that is lost because of their unbelief. (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.85, 86-87).

Here some men say, “How then could I bring my children into society and make proper marriage settlements? I must make some show.” Tell me, are not these the words of a heart which doubts God and trusts more in its own providing than in God’s care? Yet St. Peter teaches and says, “Cast all your care on him and be certain he cares for you” [I Pet. 5:7]. It is a sign that they have never yet thanked God for their children, have never yet rightly prayed for them, have never yet commended them to him. Had they done so, they would have known from their own experience that they should also ask God to settle the marriage of their children and wait upon his guidance. Because they do not do this, he just lets them go their own way, bringing cares and worries on themselves; and even then they do not order their lives well. (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.84-85).

4. Now children are not to obey parents who are so foolish that they bring up their children after the fashion of this world. God is to be more highly regarded than parents according to the first three commandments. I call it being brought up after the fashion of the world when parents teach their children to seek nothing but the pleasure, honor, possessions, or power of this world.

To wear decent clothes and seek an honest living is a necessity, not a sin. Yet in his heart a child must be reconciled to the fact that it is an awful pity that this miserable earthly life cannot well be lived, or even begun, without the striving after more adornment and more possessions than are necessary to protect the body against cold and for nourishment. Thus the child must be taught to do against its own will what the world wants. The child must put up with fools and with that kind of evil for the sake of something better and to avoid something worse. Queen Esther wore her royal crown, but yet she said to God, “Thou knowest that the sign of my high estate which is upon my head has never at all delighted me, and that I abhor it as a filthy, menstruous rag. I never wear it when I am alone, but only when I have to and when I face the people.” The heart that is so minded wears adornment without peril, for it wears and yet does not wear, it dances yet does not dance, it lives well yet does not live well. And souls such as this are the secret hidden brides of Christ. But such souls are rare, for it is hard not to take delight in great adornment and display. Thus St. Cecilia wore golden clothes at the command of her parents, but underneath she wore a hair shirt next to her skin. (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.83-84).