Honor thy father and thy mother

The first four commandments are about how to relate to the LORD God. The fifth commandment, however, is about how to relate to people, and it is the first commandment accompanied by a promise; meaning, if you keep it, you will receive a reward from the LORD.
In Exodus 20:12 “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.” It is as if the LORD is telling us how to obtain the first key to blessing, which is the blessing of a long life, through the commandment “Honor your father and your mother.”
Certainly, the goal is not merely a long life, for there are those who live up to a hundred years, yet spend those years in humiliation and suffering.
The LORD says in the Holy Bible, Ephesians 6 “2- Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) 3- That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.”
Therefore, you will have goodness along with a long life.
Notice that the commandment to honor parents came before the commandments: “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” “Thou shalt not steal,” as if the LORD wishes to teach us that violating this commandment is more serious than violating the commandments against murder, theft, and adultery.
At the same time, it is the fifth commandment, coming after the first four commandments that speak about our relationship with the LORD God. It is as if the LORD wishes to teach us that our parents come directly after the LORD on earth.

• The Holy Bible gives us examples of people who honored their parents and, as a result, received blessing, honor, and glory from the LORD, including:
– Joseph, and Isaac who obeyed his father Abraham even when he took him up the mountain to offer him as a sacrifice, and Shem and Japheth, the sons of Noah, who did not mock their father when he was uncovered, but rather covered his nakedness, so they and their descendants were blessed.

• At the same time, the Holy Bible shows us examples of people who were cursed because they did not honor their parents, including:
– Ham, the brother of Shem and Japheth, who mocked his father’s nakedness, so he and his descendants were cursed, as recorded in the Book of Genesis 9:25: “And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.”
– Jacob, who exploited his father’s blindness and stole his brother’s birthright, so he was punished with the exact same type of deed: his uncle Laban exploited him and brought Leah to him into the wedding tent instead of Rachel, after he had worked for seven years to marry her, forcing him to work another seven years to marry Rachel. Furthermore, his own children deceived him in his old age when they took his son Joseph and threw him into the pit, and then sold him to the Ishmaelites. When Jacob was asked about the days of his life, he said, as in the Book of Genesis 47:9 “few and evil have the days of the years of my life been”

• How do we honor our parents according to the LORD God’s command?
Some people confuse honoring with blind obedience, believing that honoring requires them to comply with their parents’ demands in everything. Meanwhile, the Holy Bible teaches us exactly what is required of us toward our parents; if we go beyond what the LORD commands, we anger the LORD, and if we fall short of it, we anger Him as well.

Parents are honored: first, through respect; second, by meeting their needs.

• The First Aspect: Respect.
Respect has several forms, including: respect through one’s gaze, verbal respect (through words), and respect through actions. In Christianity, respect encompasses all three types.

1. Respect through sight (gaze):
In Deuteronomy 27:16 “Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother.”

Sometimes, parents themselves are the reason their children look down on them or on one of them, when they pour out their problems or their vengeance against each other by telling the children about the other’s faults. Thus, the mother tries to make her children hate their father, and the father belittles the mother in front of her children so they will hate her. It is written in Proverbs 30:17 “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.”

2. Verbal Respect:
Even if our parents are among the worst people, insulting a father or a mother is strictly forbidden. This does not mean that we must obey them; rather, what is forbidden is insulting and belittling them, no matter how bad they are, as in Proverbs 20:20 “Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.”
Long ago, the LORD God established death as the punishment for insulting one’s parents, as stated in Exodus 21:17: “And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.”
As Christians, we must remove the vocabulary of insults and cursing from our tongues with all people—how much more so with our parents?

3. Respect through Actions:
The LORD decreed the death as punishment for insulting one’s parents, so how much more serious is striking one’s parents? In Exodus 21:15 “And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.”
There is an important matter that we must pay attention to: the era of technology has changed the moral standards. In the past, parents were the primary source of experience; a son would inherit his father’s profession, and a mother was her daughter’s reference point in life and in raising children. Because of this, respect for parents was immense.
Today, however, parents are wronged for not keeping up with technology, and the nature of modern life has led children to look down on their parents’ experiences.

• The Second Aspect: Meeting their needs.
Our Christian faith, in general, calls us to help everyone, as it says in the Gospel according to Matthew 5:42 “Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”
So how much more if the ones asking and requesting are our parents?
It is our duty to meet the needs of our parents, as stated in
1 Timothy 5:8 “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”
In other words, all your religious rituals, acts of worship, church attendance, fasting, and prayers you perform will make you equal to unbelievers if you fall short of your parents’ rights.
The LORD Jesus Christ taught us this Himself when He entrusted His mother, the Virgin Mary, to John so that he would care for her and take her into his own home.
Meeting our parents’ needs, honoring them, and showing them genuine respect are very different from merely honoring them with words in front of others. The LORD Jesus rebuked the Jews for this very thing in
Matthew 15: “5- But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; 6- And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. 7- Ye hypocrites”
This even extends to excessive veneration without genuine acts of righteousness, as Muslims do when they say, “Paradise lies under the feet of mothers.” This is an exaggeration to the point of blasphemy, for how could Paradise—the dwelling place of the LORD God—be beneath the feet of mothers?
This leaves the question that troubles many children:
What if my parents are very bad people—for example, if one of them is a murderer, an adulterer, or a thief— how can I honor them?

The Holy Bible teaches us 3 important things regarding the limits of obeying bad parents:

1- Not obeying them if they oppose the LORD: Ephesians 6:1 “Children, obey your parents in the LORD: for this is right.”
When the demands of a father or a mother go against the commandments of the LORD, we must remind them of what is written in the Book of Acts 5:29 “We ought to obey God rather than men.”
For the LORD says clearly in Ezekiel 20:18 “Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols”
2- Not obeying parents in their personal whims, selfishness, and the desire of some to enslave their children by wrongfully intervening in their children’s homes, the names of their children, and provoking them by comparing them to other children. This is clarified in Colossians 3:21 “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.”
And in Ephesians 6:4 “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the LORD.”
3. Honoring parents does not mean remaining attached to them for the rest of one’s life:
In Genesis 2:24 “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife”
This is the LORD’s command for building a healthy marriage, and it does not contradict honoring one’s parents.
However, if children are placed in a choice between obeying their parents and following the LORD Jesus Christ because the parents are against the faith, the answer is found in Luke 14:26 “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”
God has given us in the Holy Bible the right way—mentally, physically psychologically, and and in terms of well-being— to live with our parents: to honor and respect them. As for obedience, it is only in matters that please the LORD.

September / 9 / 2020