Honor Your Parents

The fifth commandment is, “Honor your father and your mother.” Or, as God says in Leviticus, “Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father.” God gets heavy with us in this command. That’s what the Hebrew word for honor means. Heavy. Weighty. It is the same word the Old Testament uses to speak of the glory of God, and of the weight of divine majesty and authority that He has. So to honor father and mother is to give them the weight of respect that is due. But we are also commanded to revere them. That means to reverence them, to esteem them highly. God chose them for us. And as Augustine said, “If anyone fails to honor his parents, is there anyone he will spare?” 

It has always been fascinating to me to read Paul’s list of sins in 2 Timothy 3 that he said we would see in the last days. And we are in the last days! These sinful people include those who are “proud, arrogant, abusive, and brutal.” And sandwiched in that list are those who are “disobedient to parents.” We almost have come to expect this disrespect and dishonor from teenagers, haven’t we? And the culture we live in promotes and seems to celebrate this sin. One magazine aimed at teen girls had this on the cover: “Do you really hate your parents? Like, who doesn’t?” And inside the magazine offered advice on “How to deal with your detestables.” Wow. Put that article up against the penalty in the Old Testament for cursing your parents: “For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.” Again, if we gathered every person who had taken the Lord’s name in vain (the third commandment) and every person who had cursed his father or mother and applied the Old Testament law…well, you get the idea.

 We all had our teenage moments, didn’t we? And we who have raised children to adulthood have had to parent those moments as well. I can relate to Mark Twain’s quote, “When a boy turns 13, put him in a barrel and feed him through a knot hole. When he turns 16, plug up the hole.” And I know I am also writing to some of you who grew up in a very different environment. No parents are perfect, but yours were particularly not. Maybe you had a great mother but your father was not good and kind. Instead, he was abusive and angry. Or maybe it was the other way around: your father was your encourager and it was your mother who deeply wounded you. In those cases, let me plead with you to do these three things. First, remember the people God sent your way to show you a father’s love and a mother’s tenderness. Give thanks for them. Second, ask God to give you grace to forgive your parents. Third, as God for the ability, by His mighty power, to honor them, despite their inadequacies. And know that if you never had parents who loved you and taught you, God stepped in to take their place. The Psalmist wrote, “For my father and mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.” Yes. He does and some of you know that more than I possibly could.

What if your parents were godly and worked hard to lead you, love you, disciple you, and grow you up to become godly adults? You cannot tell them too much or too often that you love them and give God glory for what He did through them. And if you are in this season yet, you probably will be one day, as you will swap roles with the ones who cared for you. You will be your parents’ caregiver as they age and become dependent. What do they say about us as humans? Once a man (or woman), twice a child? 

If we honor our father and mother in their vigor, we certainly must honor them in their infirmity and in their last years.