“Honor your father and your mother” sounds like the perfect commandment to throw out whenever your kids misbehave. A good “because I said so” kind of phrase to use when our parental authority is being questioned. But what does it really mean not only for our kids to honor us but for us to honor our parents?
If you divide the Ten Commandments into two sections, the first four commandments have everything to do with loving God first, and the last six have everything to do with how we treat our neighbor. This aligns perfectly with Jesus' reply in Matthew 22:37-40 when asked what the greatest commandment is: "And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.'”
So, when we come to the 5th commandment in Exodus 20:12, we come to the portion of the commandments that deal with loving our neighbor. Notice how loving our neighbor starts in the first relationship we are ever in - the one we have with our parents. And in that relationship, we are called to honor them. The word honor in Hebrew means heavy. It holds the idea of giving something weight. There are relationships in our lives that carry a lot of weight. To honor those people is to say, "It is a weighty matter how I treat you."
Let's look at the specifics of honoring parents.
In children, honor equals obedience.
The Apostle Paul requotes the 5th commandment in Ephesians 6:1-3: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 'Honor your father and mother' (this is the first commandment with a promise), 'that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.'" Paul's words show us that even after Christ has come and fulfilled the law, it is still binding and right for children to obey their parents in the Lord.
When we are teaching our children to obey, it is important as Christian parents to not only explain our expectations but to connect those expectations to our identity in God and what He expects of us. This does not mean we try to cram the Bible down our children's throats or scare them into obedience, but it does mean that we connect our correction to conviction.
If we don't tell them the biblical "why" of our expectations, we're not developing their conscience in the Lord. We need to craft the hearts of our children to help them see why they need to honor and obey us and, ultimately, why they need to honor and obey the Lord.
For adults, honor looks like respect and care.
In Proverbs 23:22, we read, "Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old." We may be out from under their roof and their care, but God still calls us to honor and respect them.
Perhaps you come from a household where tension, neglect, hostility, or even abuse were painfully present, or a parent was completely absent. How do you honor parents who haven't been or aren't being honorable? When dealing with these difficult parental relationships, we can remember these things.
- First, honor does not always equal obedience. You are never called to obey someone if obeying them causes you to disobey God. God's will and Word always trump anything another human asks you to do.
- Honor does not always equal agreement. We are not dishonoring a family member when we cannot agree with their choices, lifestyle, language, or decision-making.
- Honor certainly doesn't equal enabling, and honor doesn't always equal closeness. Sometimes, we find ourselves being used and abused instead of loved and nurtured, and we may have to adjust the degree of closeness we allow. We aren't to assume the 5th commandment means we are to be doormats.
But the opposite is true as well.
- Honor always means love. We cannot let bitterness turn to hatred.
- Honor always equals prayer. We cannot give up and stop praying for our parents.
- Honor always means concern. Christians should go out of their way to love and care for their older parents, even if their older parents have not always loved and cared for them. We don't have the liberty to wash our hands of people because our Savior didn't wash His hands of us.
- And honor always equals the gospel. When people who are supposed to love you and nurture you don't, it's usually an indication of a broken relationship with the Lord. Let your relationship with the Lord guard you from becoming bitter and angry. Pray for their relationship with Him. And if you find yourself in a position where someone who is supposed to love and nurture you doesn't, remember… you do have a Father in heaven who has never failed you.
If you have scars from a broken parental relationship, I want you to know how sorry I am. I realize it can be tempting to blame God and run from the church, but I want to encourage you to resist running. Come to Him. Be a part of His church. He will put mothers and fathers in your life who might not share your DNA but do have the same blood - the blood of Jesus. And that changes everything.