Bible study questions

An interesting issue that's arisen during Bible study. We were up to the part of Ephesians where it talks about children obeying parents and parents training their children in the Lord. This led to the question of whether adults still need to obey their parents, and if not, then when do children transition into adulthood. The passage does not explicitly answer these questions, which led to people giving their own answers which were largely based on cultural assumptions. So there were a few different opinions. I suggested the idea that when a person is no longer living in their parents house they are no longer bound to obey in the same way, although we are always called to honour them. I don't hold this to be a definite principle because I can't find biblical verses one way or the other (maybe they are there, but I'm still looking). Another person in the study, who is from the Tongan culture and who is about the same age as my parents, suggested that children are called to obey until their parents pass away. The conversation became quite heated!
I've been asking pretty much everyone that I see what they think about these questions. If anyone's reading this out there, I'd be interested in hearing what you think. Probably will have to post later once I've looked in to more of what the Bible says on this topic.

Cultural differences aren't necessarily a bad thing. The important thing is to translate biblical principles into whatever culture we are in, and to hold the Bible's truth above all traditional and cultural values. It's also important to remember the freedom that we have in Christ, and not to get legalistic about issues that are open to intepretation. It's a real learning experience to be in a Bible study with people that are all different ages, different cultures and different theological backgrounds. Considering what we've been learning about in Ephesians, though, it's been a great way to get practical about unity.