Honor Your Parents

Ex 20:12 ““Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

Eph 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.””

This commandment, like others to honor/submit, has a understood prerequisite

that you honor and love and submit to God more.

Matt 10:37 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

It is possible to honor your parents in sin

1 Kings 22:52 “He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.”

We honor, we submit, in so far as we do not sin. Same as always.

if we don’t do this - we give way to tyrants. Even tyrants inside of the family.

no human authority is absolute.

Everyone in authority is under authority.

Likewise - we need to remember that hte command to honor isn’t something to be treated lightly, it was put alongside serious sins

2 Tim 3:2 “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,”

Romans 1:30 “slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,”

We’re not talking jaywalking here - we’re talking serious stuff.

But - the word honor is ambiguous for us nowadays - we need a lesson on the details.

Prov 1:8 “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching,”

to honor means to be a student of your parents.

to honor means to please your parents.

Prov 10:1 “The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.”

Prov 23:22 “Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.”

To honor means to listen.

To honor means that children respect that it is their parents responsibility for their sexual purity.

Deut 22:20-21 “But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”

Children must respect their parents property

prov 28:24 “Whoever robs his father or his mother and says, “That is no transgression,” is a companion to a man who destroys.”

Children must BLESS their parents

prov 30:11 “There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers.”

Speak well, be a blessing.

Lev 19:3 “Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.”

to hold in high regard, to do so outwardly.

Work to repay your parents

1 Tim 5:4 “But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.”

In other words - taking care of your parents has certain financial commitments.

Mark 7:10 “For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’”

This corresponds to earlier duties parents have for their kiddos

2 Cor 12:14 “Here for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.”

Obviously - obedience for dependent children

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

never lashing out or striking Exod 21:15 ““Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.”

or cursing Ex 21:17 ““Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.”

never mocking Prov 30:17 “The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.”

Never showing contempt for them Deut 27:16 ““ ‘Cursed be anyone who dishonors (shows contempt for) his father or his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”