By John Stallings
A grandfather lived with his son & family. The family had one six year old boy. The old gentleman had a condition that caused him to tremble slightly which became a problem when he was eating. One evening at dinner, in spite of the old man’s best efforts, food dropped from his plate, some landing on the table, some on the floor & some on the front of his clothing.
The wife flew into a rage declaring she no longer would allow grandpa to sit at the table with them. She insisted her husband make a wooden bowl she could put his father’s food in & she would serve him in his room.
The husband did as his wife demanded & carved a bowl from a large chunk of wood he had in his workshop. Then, night after night grandpa would sit in his room & eat his meals from the bowl, cut off from the fellowship of his family.
Not long afterward, the man saw his little boy in the backyard chopping on a large chunk of wood. He asked the boy what he was doing & the boy replied excitedly, “Oh, daddy, I’m making you & mommy bowls like grandpa’s so when you’re old like him, I can feed you in them.”
Pricked in his heart, the man brought his dad back into the dining room & grandpa never ate alone in his room again.
In the boy’s innocence, he’d gotten the truth over to his dad that what he sowed in putting his father away, he would reap someday.
We should all remember the way we treat our own mothers & fathers will almost certainly serve as a pattern for the way our offspring will someday treat us. Do we expect their treatment of us to magically be better than the example we’ve set before them?
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT
The Bible shifts gears in the Ten Commandments between Four & Five & we notice now the laws are about people. Not only about people but how God expects us to honor Him by the way we treat specially placed people like our parents in our lives. The fifth Commandment is all about honoring parents & in so doing we’re honoring God, -- that’s where all this is going.
The first four Commandments have to do with; -- no other gods, graven images, the taking of the Lord’s name in vain & remembering the Sabbath. These are the Commandments designed to address us to God. Honoring our parents is transitional because following it is, -- thou shalt not kill; commit adultery, steal, & so forth. Again, they are about how people should treat people.
It’s interesting that the parental Commandment is given before “Thou shall not kill” & starts off the second tablet God gave Moses. This parental Commandment is the one in between, transferring God’s authority from heaven to a horizontal level beginning with the parents, in the home & reaching out from there.
I pray that God will help me to amplify Exodus 20:12,--Honor your father & mother that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you, -- because what seems to be a very simplistic Commandment is not all that simple, but is in reality a loaded one.
Parents are foundational in the authority structure of God & we need to not only have a heart-check, but carefully evaluate our understanding of this business of honoring our parents.
Our culture these days doesn’t do a very good job of honoring things worth honoring. Our honor code has been flipped upside down & we now honor incompetent movie stars & musicians above men & women who are willing to sacrifice their lives for our freedom. We’ll honor “American Idols” before we’ll honor people who make real contributions to preserving our way of life.
When God says-- you shall honor your father & mother; -- He is doing more than offering us some good domestic advice. He has placed certain people in our lives that represent Himself, His interests & His authority. He commands us to honor that authority which represents His own because the way we regard & treat the ones He’s placed in our lives, no matter how uncomfortable it may be to hear, is an accurate reflection of how we regard God Himself.
LET’S DEFINE THE WORD HONOR
The Hebrew word regarding honoring parents is kabed. Though I think the King James translators were masterful in their use of the English language, to translate that word as honor is, shall I say, not so great? The true meaning of the word kabed is --dignity. Thus the way we should treat our parents is with dignity & do all possible to insure their dignity is kept in tact.
Opening doors & helping our aging parents in & out of cars if they need that help preserves their dignity. Seeing to it that they’re clothed & fed in their old age is preserving their dignity. Contacting them on special days, calling & writing them if they don’t live nearby is preserving their dignity. Anything that diminishes the dignity of the parent is an insult & an affront to God.
According to the Old Testament, there’s a curse placed on anyone who dishonors or treats a parent in a way that compromises their dignity;
…….God’s curse on anyone who demeans a parent. Deuteronomy 27:16---The Message.
The meaning & true depth of kabed even has to do with the attitude & tone of voice that’s used with the parent. An offspring will often have the right to disagree with the parent but they should maintain a parent’s dignity even when disagreeing with them.
But actually, kabed has little to do with sentiment. Relationship is secondary while dignity has everything to do with a position as God’s representative.
Even in a world ruled by wicked & sinful men, both Paul & Peter told us to obey all authority for all authority is established by God Himself. Read Romans 13:1 & I Peter 2:13-17.
Surveys show that in 1940, 76% of all American households had at least one elderly member of the family living in the house. By 1980, the number had shrunk to less than 2%. This shows us that Americans have terminated the whole concept of the extended family.
My grandmother, on my mother’s side lived in the home with us for thirty-two years. Though she & I would often disagree, [she sewed some of my shirts & put the buttons on the girl’s side] she did nearly as much to raise me as my mother did. I greatly missed her & wept when she went to heaven. Looking back, I can see that the texture of my life was greatly enhanced by my grandmother living with us.
I’m not saying here that it’s always God’s will for elderly parents to stay in their children’s home. That may or may not be the best arrangement & each family has the freedom under God to determine what the specific arrangements should be. But it’s not right to just abandon our parents to a nursing home so that we can ignore them. Even if you don’t believe what the Bible says about the matter of caring for parents, believe this; there’s a Karma train that will run you down if you don’t handle this matter tactfully.
Many younger adults seem to have no clue what the Bible means when it Commands us to honor our parents. When you think about that it’s strange because we all instinctively know what it means to treat a person with honor & dignity.
If you were to have a guest in your home you wouldn’t need to call Miss Manners or go online to find out how to do it. When you honor a guest, what do you do? You roll out the red carpet. You bring out the china & flatware. Honored guests are treated as valuable & important. You make sure their physical needs are met. You strive to give them the very best you have; the best food, drink, the best room & you listen with respect when they talk.
WHY DID PARENTS RATE ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS?
A lot of nice things didn’t make it into the Ten Commandments. For instance, why aren’t we told to honor children? We know that children are our future. If we don’t honor them, care for them, raise them well & educate them our society will fall apart, will it not? Also children are weak & innocent & need love & tender care. Why then wouldn’t the Commandment read like this;
…..”Thou shalt honor thy children, provide for them, give them college educations that they may feel indebted to you & make you proud in your old age?”
Why, in the Ten Commandments doesn’t God put the emphasis on honoring children or for that matter on wives or husbands? We are told to love & care for all of these & to cherish all our relationships but none of them made the Top-ten list. To the modern mind this seems like a reversal of priorities that God singles out parents for special honor, but the answer as we’ve already stated is that parents are pivotal & foundational in God’s authority structure.
In Exodus 21:15 we’re told that anyone who attacks his father or mother should be put to death. In Leviticus 20:9 we learn that under the Law, anyone who cursed his father or mother must be put to death.
And in Deuteronomy 21:18-21 we get this sobering passage:
If a man has a stubborn & rebellious son who does not obey his father& mother & will not listen to them when they chasten him, his father & mother shall take hold of him & bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders,--This son of ours is stubborn & rebellious. He will not obey us. He is profligate & a drunkard. Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you.
How many of us would have survived this law?
Notice, to dishonor parents in the Old Testament was a capital offense. In the New Testament it’s a denial of the faith, making one worse than an unbeliever. The New Testament doesn’t abolish parental honor but ratifies it & further clarifies It.—1 Tim.5:8
GOD DIDN’T GIVE THIS COMMANDMENT TO YOUNG CHILDREN.
It’s a mistake to think that God’s command about honoring parents is for children. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the New Testament children are told to obey their parents but the fifth Commandment is a life-long command & it’s clearly given to adult offspring in relationship to aging parents. Obviously as children grow up & parents grow old the parent is needed less & this fifth Commandment is God’s way of protecting the aging parent. We may not relish it so much when the burden is on us, but we’re certain to love it when it’s coming our way.
In I Timothy 5:8, Paul says—But if any provide not for his own house, he hath denied the faith & is worse than an infidel.
We often hear this verse quoted & used to speak to fathers who don’t provide for their families. Certainly it applies to that but Paul is also speaking here of any person who doesn’t provide for their family who needs care & protection, including assisting aged parents. Paul goes on to say people who neglect members of their family are worse than outright unbelievers.
As an aside, adult children aren’t expected by God to endure abusive behavior or disrespect from their aging parents. The parental Commandment isn’t to be used as a club over the offspring’s head.
It’s almost inevitable that adult children will at some point along the way be a disappointment to their parents & conversely the parents will at times disappoint their children. We were never promised a rose garden, & while God expects children to honor & respect their parents, He also expects the parents to be honorable & respectable. However, there is no qualifier, just that a parent be treated with respect. There are no loop-holes in the fifth Commandment. God didn’t say—Honor your parents if they deserve it--- He just Commands us to honor our parents.
As a young evangelist in my early twenties, the door opened for me to go to California for a couple of years. My father was pastoring a church in Orlando Florida & wanted me to work with him in the church on the pastoral staff. Neither of my parents wanted me to go the California, feeling I should stay closer to home. After much soul searching & prayer, I had to tell them, though I loved them & was sorry to make them unhappy, I was convinced God wanted me in California & I was going.
I was able to do what I knew God wanted me to do without ever disrespecting my parents & it wasn’t long until they saw the hand of God in the decision I made. Had I been a teenager still living at home I would have been obligated to obey my parents, but that obligation ends when an offspring moves out of their parents house. My obligation now was to honor & preserve the dignity of my parents, however, since I was in my early twenties & not living at home, & no parental neglect was involved, God expected me to obey Him & find His will for my own life.
The fifth Commandment also continues after the parent’s death. No one should disrespect their parents name even when they are dead & can no longer hear what is being said. God hears everything we say.
In Romans chapter one, there is a list of several vile & despicable sins. The following sins are listed;
…..Professing themselves to be wise they became fools,…. changed the truth of God into a lie,…. God gave them up to vile affections,… men with men, women with women engaging in homosexuality & lesbianism,… reprobate minds,… filled with all unrighteousness,…. fornicators,…. wickedness,…. covetousness, maliciousness,…. full of envy,…. murderers,…. debate,…. deceit,…. malignity, ….whisperers,…. backbiters,…. haters of God,…. proud, ….boasters,…. inventors of evil things,
………disobedient to parents…
Did anything jump out at you in that passage? Was there anything that seemed incongruous to you? Was there one sin that maybe you hadn’t placed beside the reprobates mentioned here?
The sin I speak of, the sin that we usually don’t put on the same list with fornication, a reprobate mind, murder, homosexuality, lesbianism, & all manner of shameful sins is---- being disobedient to parents. And as if that isn’t surprising enough, we’re told
…….they which commit such things are worthy of death.-Romans 1:32
Listen to the Message Bible----Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them & let them run loose….they filled the earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering & cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, forked tongued, God-bashers, bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags, they keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives,
--- They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Romans 1:28-32
WE HONOR & DIGNIFY OUR PARENTS BECAUSE OF THE HIGH POSITION THEY OCCUPY.
If a man is pulled over by a policeman, it could very well be that he’s more experienced than the officer who pulls him over. It may well be that he has more formal education than the policeman does. He may be wealthy while the policeman lives on a very meager income. However, the point is, the man doesn’t pull over because of any of the aforementioned qualifiers. He respects the law enforcement officer because of his position, because of who he is.
Joseph in the Old Testament book of Genesis had a situation that parallels a parent’s position. He wasn’t the pharaoh, but he might as well have been. Wherever Joseph went in the chariot that was given to him, everyone was told to bow the knee as though this was pharaoh. He was second in command but he might as well have been first because of the power & authority he had at his disposal.
Let’s be frank here; Joseph was a Shepard, a Hebrew, a slave, an accused rapist [though wrongly] who got released from the big-house. He was “a nobody,” but he was elevated & honored accordingly. This is akin to the authority God gives to parents.
Part of protecting a parent’s dignity is to speak well of them. If you disown them, you disown God also. If you have a parent in a penitentiary, you should go visit them as often as possible. If you can’t do it for them, do it in honor & obedience to God.
Choosing one parent to honor doesn’t satisfy the scriptural Command. Honor both your parents- BECAUSE OF WHO THEY ARE.
As in all our obligations as Christians, we don’t look at what the other person has or hasn’t done; we focus on our own actions & behavior before God.
WHAT THE COMMANDMENT DOESN’T MEAN
Honor & respecting a parent’s dignity doest mean adults must do what their parents want. That makes no sense at all. At what age would that end? God expects us to make our own decisions so we aren’t to live our lives to please our parents.
It doesn’t mean that when we marry we should put our parents first. Just the opposite, the Bible tells married couples to “leave & cleave.” Our first allegiance is to our spouse & our family & after that our parents. When we marry, that new family takes precedence over the family we were born into. Treating our parents with respect & protecting their dignity doesn’t equal living our lives for them. Parents are human & they make mistakes so honoring them doesn’t necessarily mean following in their footsteps. Our mandate is to follow God.
Sometimes, in all honesty, there are parents about whom there isn’t much good & positive to say. Certainly this is often true of both parent & offspring. Find something good to say.
You & I didn’t choose to be born. We had no control over our genetic make-up, the place of our birth or the family we were born into. We didn’t do the choosing, God did the choosing.
Hence to reject the parents you were born to is to reject the life God gave you. It’s a basic kind of rebellion against God. He was the one who created me. It was He who brought my parents together. It was He who ordered the circumstances of my birth.
Honoring my parents is a way of acknowledging & accepting God’s sovereignty over my life. I didn’t choose my parents but He did. By honoring them I demonstrate my belief that He knew what He was doing.
When I disown, dishonor, ignore or cast aside my parents or write one or both of them out of my life, I’m disowning, ignoring & casting God out of my life also. When I despise my parents I despise God. If my parents aren’t welcome in my home, God isn’t welcome either. It’s impossible to hate my parents & to love the God who chose to give me life through them.
We must settle this fifth Commandment in our hearts because God takes it deadly serious. This is proven by the promise of long life [that thy days may be long upon the earth,] when we do right by our parents.
Even if our parents treat us like dirt, we should still be God’s main link to them with His love. If they never respond to us or respond with meanness, we can be kind & caring toward them. If there is a root of bitterness for things our parents did to hurt us early in life we need to forgive them & get our hearts right in the sight of God so that we can pray for them, because obviously salvation is their primary need.
In John 19:26-28, one of the last acts of Jesus on the cross was to honor His mother. Mary had no one else so Jesus appointed John to care for her. The narrative says after that, John took her into his own house. Remember what he said in John 14:15? –If you love me, keep my Commandments.
Let us choose praise where we can & let us choose silence where we must, but let us always choose respect & dignity for our parents for this is God’s path of honor.
If I’m reading right, each time we knowingly & willfully disregard God’s clear Command to honor, respect & dignify our parents; we are in a very real sense, shortening our own lives.
A grandfather lived with his son & family. The family had one six year old boy. The old gentleman had a condition that caused him to tremble slightly which became a problem when he was eating. One evening at dinner, in spite of the old man’s best efforts, food dropped from his plate, some landing on the table, some on the floor & some on the front of his clothing.
The wife flew into a rage declaring she no longer would allow grandpa to sit at the table with them. She insisted her husband make a wooden bowl she could put his father’s food in & she would serve him in his room.
The husband did as his wife demanded & carved a bowl from a large chunk of wood he had in his workshop. Then, night after night grandpa would sit in his room & eat his meals from the bowl, cut off from the fellowship of his family.
Not long afterward, the man saw his little boy in the backyard chopping on a large chunk of wood. He asked the boy what he was doing & the boy replied excitedly, “Oh, daddy, I’m making you & mommy bowls like grandpa’s so when you’re old like him, I can feed you in them.”
Pricked in his heart, the man brought his dad back into the dining room & grandpa never ate alone in his room again.
In the boy’s innocence, he’d gotten the truth over to his dad that what he sowed in putting his father away, he would reap someday.
We should all remember the way we treat our own mothers & fathers will almost certainly serve as a pattern for the way our offspring will someday treat us. Do we expect their treatment of us to magically be better than the example we’ve set before them?
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT
The Bible shifts gears in the Ten Commandments between Four & Five & we notice now the laws are about people. Not only about people but how God expects us to honor Him by the way we treat specially placed people like our parents in our lives. The fifth Commandment is all about honoring parents & in so doing we’re honoring God, -- that’s where all this is going.
The first four Commandments have to do with; -- no other gods, graven images, the taking of the Lord’s name in vain & remembering the Sabbath. These are the Commandments designed to address us to God. Honoring our parents is transitional because following it is, -- thou shalt not kill; commit adultery, steal, & so forth. Again, they are about how people should treat people.
It’s interesting that the parental Commandment is given before “Thou shall not kill” & starts off the second tablet God gave Moses. This parental Commandment is the one in between, transferring God’s authority from heaven to a horizontal level beginning with the parents, in the home & reaching out from there.
I pray that God will help me to amplify Exodus 20:12,--Honor your father & mother that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you, -- because what seems to be a very simplistic Commandment is not all that simple, but is in reality a loaded one.
Parents are foundational in the authority structure of God & we need to not only have a heart-check, but carefully evaluate our understanding of this business of honoring our parents.
Our culture these days doesn’t do a very good job of honoring things worth honoring. Our honor code has been flipped upside down & we now honor incompetent movie stars & musicians above men & women who are willing to sacrifice their lives for our freedom. We’ll honor “American Idols” before we’ll honor people who make real contributions to preserving our way of life.
When God says-- you shall honor your father & mother; -- He is doing more than offering us some good domestic advice. He has placed certain people in our lives that represent Himself, His interests & His authority. He commands us to honor that authority which represents His own because the way we regard & treat the ones He’s placed in our lives, no matter how uncomfortable it may be to hear, is an accurate reflection of how we regard God Himself.
LET’S DEFINE THE WORD HONOR
The Hebrew word regarding honoring parents is kabed. Though I think the King James translators were masterful in their use of the English language, to translate that word as honor is, shall I say, not so great? The true meaning of the word kabed is --dignity. Thus the way we should treat our parents is with dignity & do all possible to insure their dignity is kept in tact.
Opening doors & helping our aging parents in & out of cars if they need that help preserves their dignity. Seeing to it that they’re clothed & fed in their old age is preserving their dignity. Contacting them on special days, calling & writing them if they don’t live nearby is preserving their dignity. Anything that diminishes the dignity of the parent is an insult & an affront to God.
According to the Old Testament, there’s a curse placed on anyone who dishonors or treats a parent in a way that compromises their dignity;
…….God’s curse on anyone who demeans a parent. Deuteronomy 27:16---The Message.
The meaning & true depth of kabed even has to do with the attitude & tone of voice that’s used with the parent. An offspring will often have the right to disagree with the parent but they should maintain a parent’s dignity even when disagreeing with them.
But actually, kabed has little to do with sentiment. Relationship is secondary while dignity has everything to do with a position as God’s representative.
Even in a world ruled by wicked & sinful men, both Paul & Peter told us to obey all authority for all authority is established by God Himself. Read Romans 13:1 & I Peter 2:13-17.
Surveys show that in 1940, 76% of all American households had at least one elderly member of the family living in the house. By 1980, the number had shrunk to less than 2%. This shows us that Americans have terminated the whole concept of the extended family.
My grandmother, on my mother’s side lived in the home with us for thirty-two years. Though she & I would often disagree, [she sewed some of my shirts & put the buttons on the girl’s side] she did nearly as much to raise me as my mother did. I greatly missed her & wept when she went to heaven. Looking back, I can see that the texture of my life was greatly enhanced by my grandmother living with us.
I’m not saying here that it’s always God’s will for elderly parents to stay in their children’s home. That may or may not be the best arrangement & each family has the freedom under God to determine what the specific arrangements should be. But it’s not right to just abandon our parents to a nursing home so that we can ignore them. Even if you don’t believe what the Bible says about the matter of caring for parents, believe this; there’s a Karma train that will run you down if you don’t handle this matter tactfully.
Many younger adults seem to have no clue what the Bible means when it Commands us to honor our parents. When you think about that it’s strange because we all instinctively know what it means to treat a person with honor & dignity.
If you were to have a guest in your home you wouldn’t need to call Miss Manners or go online to find out how to do it. When you honor a guest, what do you do? You roll out the red carpet. You bring out the china & flatware. Honored guests are treated as valuable & important. You make sure their physical needs are met. You strive to give them the very best you have; the best food, drink, the best room & you listen with respect when they talk.
WHY DID PARENTS RATE ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS?
A lot of nice things didn’t make it into the Ten Commandments. For instance, why aren’t we told to honor children? We know that children are our future. If we don’t honor them, care for them, raise them well & educate them our society will fall apart, will it not? Also children are weak & innocent & need love & tender care. Why then wouldn’t the Commandment read like this;
…..”Thou shalt honor thy children, provide for them, give them college educations that they may feel indebted to you & make you proud in your old age?”
Why, in the Ten Commandments doesn’t God put the emphasis on honoring children or for that matter on wives or husbands? We are told to love & care for all of these & to cherish all our relationships but none of them made the Top-ten list. To the modern mind this seems like a reversal of priorities that God singles out parents for special honor, but the answer as we’ve already stated is that parents are pivotal & foundational in God’s authority structure.
In Exodus 21:15 we’re told that anyone who attacks his father or mother should be put to death. In Leviticus 20:9 we learn that under the Law, anyone who cursed his father or mother must be put to death.
And in Deuteronomy 21:18-21 we get this sobering passage:
If a man has a stubborn & rebellious son who does not obey his father& mother & will not listen to them when they chasten him, his father & mother shall take hold of him & bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders,--This son of ours is stubborn & rebellious. He will not obey us. He is profligate & a drunkard. Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you.
How many of us would have survived this law?
Notice, to dishonor parents in the Old Testament was a capital offense. In the New Testament it’s a denial of the faith, making one worse than an unbeliever. The New Testament doesn’t abolish parental honor but ratifies it & further clarifies It.—1 Tim.5:8
GOD DIDN’T GIVE THIS COMMANDMENT TO YOUNG CHILDREN.
It’s a mistake to think that God’s command about honoring parents is for children. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the New Testament children are told to obey their parents but the fifth Commandment is a life-long command & it’s clearly given to adult offspring in relationship to aging parents. Obviously as children grow up & parents grow old the parent is needed less & this fifth Commandment is God’s way of protecting the aging parent. We may not relish it so much when the burden is on us, but we’re certain to love it when it’s coming our way.
In I Timothy 5:8, Paul says—But if any provide not for his own house, he hath denied the faith & is worse than an infidel.
We often hear this verse quoted & used to speak to fathers who don’t provide for their families. Certainly it applies to that but Paul is also speaking here of any person who doesn’t provide for their family who needs care & protection, including assisting aged parents. Paul goes on to say people who neglect members of their family are worse than outright unbelievers.
As an aside, adult children aren’t expected by God to endure abusive behavior or disrespect from their aging parents. The parental Commandment isn’t to be used as a club over the offspring’s head.
It’s almost inevitable that adult children will at some point along the way be a disappointment to their parents & conversely the parents will at times disappoint their children. We were never promised a rose garden, & while God expects children to honor & respect their parents, He also expects the parents to be honorable & respectable. However, there is no qualifier, just that a parent be treated with respect. There are no loop-holes in the fifth Commandment. God didn’t say—Honor your parents if they deserve it--- He just Commands us to honor our parents.
As a young evangelist in my early twenties, the door opened for me to go to California for a couple of years. My father was pastoring a church in Orlando Florida & wanted me to work with him in the church on the pastoral staff. Neither of my parents wanted me to go the California, feeling I should stay closer to home. After much soul searching & prayer, I had to tell them, though I loved them & was sorry to make them unhappy, I was convinced God wanted me in California & I was going.
I was able to do what I knew God wanted me to do without ever disrespecting my parents & it wasn’t long until they saw the hand of God in the decision I made. Had I been a teenager still living at home I would have been obligated to obey my parents, but that obligation ends when an offspring moves out of their parents house. My obligation now was to honor & preserve the dignity of my parents, however, since I was in my early twenties & not living at home, & no parental neglect was involved, God expected me to obey Him & find His will for my own life.
The fifth Commandment also continues after the parent’s death. No one should disrespect their parents name even when they are dead & can no longer hear what is being said. God hears everything we say.
In Romans chapter one, there is a list of several vile & despicable sins. The following sins are listed;
…..Professing themselves to be wise they became fools,…. changed the truth of God into a lie,…. God gave them up to vile affections,… men with men, women with women engaging in homosexuality & lesbianism,… reprobate minds,… filled with all unrighteousness,…. fornicators,…. wickedness,…. covetousness, maliciousness,…. full of envy,…. murderers,…. debate,…. deceit,…. malignity, ….whisperers,…. backbiters,…. haters of God,…. proud, ….boasters,…. inventors of evil things,
………disobedient to parents…
Did anything jump out at you in that passage? Was there anything that seemed incongruous to you? Was there one sin that maybe you hadn’t placed beside the reprobates mentioned here?
The sin I speak of, the sin that we usually don’t put on the same list with fornication, a reprobate mind, murder, homosexuality, lesbianism, & all manner of shameful sins is---- being disobedient to parents. And as if that isn’t surprising enough, we’re told
…….they which commit such things are worthy of death.-Romans 1:32
Listen to the Message Bible----Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them & let them run loose….they filled the earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering & cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, forked tongued, God-bashers, bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags, they keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives,
--- They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Romans 1:28-32
WE HONOR & DIGNIFY OUR PARENTS BECAUSE OF THE HIGH POSITION THEY OCCUPY.
If a man is pulled over by a policeman, it could very well be that he’s more experienced than the officer who pulls him over. It may well be that he has more formal education than the policeman does. He may be wealthy while the policeman lives on a very meager income. However, the point is, the man doesn’t pull over because of any of the aforementioned qualifiers. He respects the law enforcement officer because of his position, because of who he is.
Joseph in the Old Testament book of Genesis had a situation that parallels a parent’s position. He wasn’t the pharaoh, but he might as well have been. Wherever Joseph went in the chariot that was given to him, everyone was told to bow the knee as though this was pharaoh. He was second in command but he might as well have been first because of the power & authority he had at his disposal.
Let’s be frank here; Joseph was a Shepard, a Hebrew, a slave, an accused rapist [though wrongly] who got released from the big-house. He was “a nobody,” but he was elevated & honored accordingly. This is akin to the authority God gives to parents.
Part of protecting a parent’s dignity is to speak well of them. If you disown them, you disown God also. If you have a parent in a penitentiary, you should go visit them as often as possible. If you can’t do it for them, do it in honor & obedience to God.
Choosing one parent to honor doesn’t satisfy the scriptural Command. Honor both your parents- BECAUSE OF WHO THEY ARE.
As in all our obligations as Christians, we don’t look at what the other person has or hasn’t done; we focus on our own actions & behavior before God.
WHAT THE COMMANDMENT DOESN’T MEAN
Honor & respecting a parent’s dignity doest mean adults must do what their parents want. That makes no sense at all. At what age would that end? God expects us to make our own decisions so we aren’t to live our lives to please our parents.
It doesn’t mean that when we marry we should put our parents first. Just the opposite, the Bible tells married couples to “leave & cleave.” Our first allegiance is to our spouse & our family & after that our parents. When we marry, that new family takes precedence over the family we were born into. Treating our parents with respect & protecting their dignity doesn’t equal living our lives for them. Parents are human & they make mistakes so honoring them doesn’t necessarily mean following in their footsteps. Our mandate is to follow God.
Sometimes, in all honesty, there are parents about whom there isn’t much good & positive to say. Certainly this is often true of both parent & offspring. Find something good to say.
You & I didn’t choose to be born. We had no control over our genetic make-up, the place of our birth or the family we were born into. We didn’t do the choosing, God did the choosing.
Hence to reject the parents you were born to is to reject the life God gave you. It’s a basic kind of rebellion against God. He was the one who created me. It was He who brought my parents together. It was He who ordered the circumstances of my birth.
Honoring my parents is a way of acknowledging & accepting God’s sovereignty over my life. I didn’t choose my parents but He did. By honoring them I demonstrate my belief that He knew what He was doing.
When I disown, dishonor, ignore or cast aside my parents or write one or both of them out of my life, I’m disowning, ignoring & casting God out of my life also. When I despise my parents I despise God. If my parents aren’t welcome in my home, God isn’t welcome either. It’s impossible to hate my parents & to love the God who chose to give me life through them.
We must settle this fifth Commandment in our hearts because God takes it deadly serious. This is proven by the promise of long life [that thy days may be long upon the earth,] when we do right by our parents.
Even if our parents treat us like dirt, we should still be God’s main link to them with His love. If they never respond to us or respond with meanness, we can be kind & caring toward them. If there is a root of bitterness for things our parents did to hurt us early in life we need to forgive them & get our hearts right in the sight of God so that we can pray for them, because obviously salvation is their primary need.
In John 19:26-28, one of the last acts of Jesus on the cross was to honor His mother. Mary had no one else so Jesus appointed John to care for her. The narrative says after that, John took her into his own house. Remember what he said in John 14:15? –If you love me, keep my Commandments.
Let us choose praise where we can & let us choose silence where we must, but let us always choose respect & dignity for our parents for this is God’s path of honor.
If I’m reading right, each time we knowingly & willfully disregard God’s clear Command to honor, respect & dignify our parents; we are in a very real sense, shortening our own lives.
Blessings,
John
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