Today's blog was
written by Martin Davids, a member of Manor Park Church
Honour
your father and mother.
12 “Honour your father and your
mother, so that you may live long in the
land the Lord your God is giving you."
I am convinced that the first verse a
child brought up in a Christian family is this one (along with, perhaps, John
3:16) and it is not surprising that the Lord should have a word for us
regarding our conduct towards our parents. So important are respectful
children that the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Paul, makes this a
prerequisite of eldership “He
must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must
do so in a manner worthy of full[a] respect.”
(1 Tim 3:4)
Honouring your parents the first step
in loving your neighbour
The commandments that we have dealt
with so far have to do with our relationship with God. This is the first one
that has to do with our relationship with our neighbour. And it is very
noticeable that the first commandment that the Lord gives in regard to our
relationship with others is one about honouring our parents. There is a reason
for that and it is very simply that if someone does not have their relationship
with their parents right they are likely to offend in regard to the other
commandments. They will have a basic character flaw that will impede them in
keeping the rest of the commandments. But if someone does honour his or her
father and mother it is going to safeguard them, at least to some degree from
going down a path of offending against the other commandments. But please
notice that the Lord puts this first. There are only Ten Commandments and the
Lord uses one of them to urge honouring of parents and he does so before he
forbids stealing and murder and lying. That is how important this is.
What does honouring look like?
What does the Bible say about how you
should treat your mother and your Father? First of all when we are young and
living under our parents ‘roof’ then we conform to your parents. In other words
you should pay heed to them and obey them (Ephesians 6:1-3) The question
arises, “What if my parents are unsaved?” The Bible doesn’t tell us that
we are to only honour godly parents. No, it simply tells us to honour our
parents. The only time that we cannot obey is if they are telling us to do
something that is contrary to the Word of God or preventing us from worshipping
God.
But what about if I am grown up and
left home? A grown child is not under the same obligation to obey as is one
living under their parents ‘roof’, yet they can still honour their parents by
listening to their advice. The reality is that our parents have been down
the road of life longer than we have and may be able to see us repeating a
mistake they made at their age and they want us to avoid it. As a younger
man, like so many young men and women, I thought I ‘knew it all’ and didn’t
need to listen to parental advice. I never really understood the wisdom
of that advice until later in life and especially now as a parent, I find
myself saying the things I would ‘roll my eyes’ at in my youth. Young
people, please realise that your parents have your best interests at heart and
godly parents are constantly sacrificing (very often behind the scenes) for you
regularly, with a smile on their face so that you are not aware of the
sacrifice. I once saw a meme with a child walking between his parents,
holding their hands. On his feet were odd shoes – he looked glum.
Above the image was written “Never complain about what your parents couldn’t
give you – maybe it was all they had.” When you looked at the parents
they only have one shoe on – they had each given one of their shoes to the
child so that he could have two.
We also must honour our parents when
they are old. During ‘lockdown’ I did a ‘delivery run’ for one of our
members who was temporally in a residential home. I saw a number of messages
posted by the residents on the window for their relatives. There were
some lovely ones but what saddened me were quite a few that said “Just to let
you know I’m fine, however I haven’t seen my family in months…” or “I doubt
they will read this but….” It would appear that these elderly relatives
had been abandoned by their families. This is now a new phenomenon – Jesus
encountered the same with the Jew’s of his day. It was known as the Corban
rule. They taught a tradition, that if you dedicated your money to the
temple then it excused you from using it to look after your parents.
Jesus harshly rebuked this, telling them that their tradition ‘nullified the
Word of God’.
Summing it up
For some this is an easy Commandment to
follow. Some of you had great (and some were blessed to also have godly)
parents. They were easy to honour as a child and still are. For
other, this is a hard commandment. One or both of your parents were
harsh, absent or in some way not an example of a good, let alone a godly
parent. If you are in the second group I would encourage you to think
over this again. God isn’t telling us we must show affection to a wayward
parent but simply honour them. Why? If only for one reason - I have heard
of a few cases where parents have been brought to faith witnessing the godly
conduct of their children. This alone should be reason enough. Yet God
never fails to give us more than we deserve. Due to the transforming work
of the Gospel, the parent’s life is changed in their latter years, and the
child enjoys the relationship they missed out on and craved when they were
younger.
Song for the day
I really struggled to find a song for
today but then I remembered this song called "A Mothers Prayer" I
found when my daughter was born and though not a song about honouring your
parents – perhaps it will give you an appreciation for them, knowing this is
the desire of a godly parent for their child. It can be found here
Prayer for the day.
Our Father in heaven
We give you thanks for your commands –
even when we find that through our own earthly circumstances we many find them
difficult. We ask that you will help us to honour our parents, whether
they be with us or not and whether we find that easy or not. We also ask
that those who are parents show not only our children but the watching world
what the example of Godly parents should be and in doing so bring honour to
you. As our Father we pray that we may do everything to honour you.
We ask these things through the name of
your Son
Amen
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