The Fifth Commandment: Honour your Father and Mother

“Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.”

Annie Gottlieb is one of many participants who identify “the Sixties” as “the generation that destroyed the American family.” She writes, 

“We might not have been able to tear down the state, but the family was closer. We could get our hands on it. And... we believed that the family was the foundation of the state, as well as the collective state of mind.... We truly believed that the family had to be torn apart to free love, which alone could heal the damage done when the atom was split to release energy. And the first step was to tear ourselves free from our parents.”

Annie Gottlieb, Do You Believe in Magic? (New York: Time, 1987), pp. 234, 235. Quoted by Philip Graham Ryken, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Preaching the Word; ed. R. Kent Hughes; Accordance electronic ed. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2005), 602.

“God intends the family to be our first hospital, first school, first government, first church.”

Rob Schenck, The Ten Words That Will Change a Nation: The Ten Commandments (Tulsa, OK: Albury, 1999), p. 88. Quoted by Philip Graham Ryken.

1. Fathers and Mothers: Be Worthy of Honour

1.1. By Honouring and loving one another

Eph. 5:21  Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22  Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.  24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,  27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.

Remember that the husband is to submit himself to his wife out of reverence for Christ, by living self-sacrificially

And if wives submitting to their husbands still troubles you:

1Cor. 11:3  Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.

Remember that Christ is 100% God, and 100% equal to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, so God (the Father) is the head of Christ in that Christ lovingly and voluntarily chose to act in a different role to His Father, and serve their commonly agreed purpose to love, serve and redeem us. In the same way, a wife is 100% equal to her husband in dignity and worth, but God has assigned her a role that is different to her husband, and they must use those roles to work out their commonly agreed purpose to love and serve one another in their marriage, as well as their children, their church and in their community.

1.2 By loving and raising their children in an honourable way.

a. Teaching and living your faith to your should be an everyday part of life in the home

Deut 6:6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  7 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.

Eph. 6:4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. 

b. Recognise the weaknesses and individuality of your children

Not: Prov. 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Rather: Prov. 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Col. 3:21 Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. 

Eph. 6:4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children. 

d. Both parents need to be involved

Prov 1:8 Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.

Prov. 23:26 My son, give me your heart and let your eyes keep to my ways, 

e. The reward of raising your children in God's ways

Prov. 27:11     Be wise, my son, and bring joy to my heart; then I can answer anyone who treats me with contempt. 

2. Children: Honour Your Father and Your Mother

Honour by respect

The Hebrew word Moses used for "honour" is kaved, which literally means “heavy” or “weighty.” Normally in the Old Testament it is used for the "glory" of God, for the weightiness of his divine majesty. So, when we honour our parents we are to give due weight to their role, their wisdom, their sacrifices and their responsibilities. It is to give them the recognition they deserve for their God-given authority. To honour our parents is to respect, esteem, value, and prize them  as gifts from God.

We also break this commandment by dishonouring or showing our parents any disrespect. If parents are weighty, then they should not be treated lightly, as if they don't matter, as if their opinion has no more weight in our decisions than dust. 

a. Look at Jesus:

Luke 2:49-51  “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. 

b. Obey your parents

Col. 3:20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Eph. 6:1  Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.  2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—  3 “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

c. Even in old age

Prov. 23:22 Listen to your father who begot you, And do not despise your mother when she is old. 

3. Wisdom needed to obey

3.1. The danger of turning family into an idol that is more important than God

Matt. 10:37  “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

3.2. Does that mean we should always obey our parents, no matter what?

Mark 3:31  Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.  32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”  33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.  34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Acts 5:29  Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men!

3.3. But how can I honour the parent who did something shameful to me? 

"Salute the uniform even if you cannot salute the man"

1 Peter 2:18–24  “Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.  “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”