Tuesday
Tuesday
Commandment 5
Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
Exodus 20:12
Since the first four commandments clearly relate to our duty to God (his being, worship, name, and day), some think that the fifth commandment introduces our duty to our neighbor, since it concerns the honoring of our parents. It seems more appropriate to other students, however, to regard the fifth commandment as still belonging to our duty to God. This is partly because five commandments are then attributed to each duty and partly because our parents (at least during our minority) stand in the place of God and mediate his authority to us.
The apostle Paul understood this honoring of our parents to require obedience and called this both right and pleasing to Christ (Eph. 6:1; Col. 3:20). Disobedience to parents is seen in the New Testament as a symptom of social disintegration (see Rom. 1:30; 2 Tim. 3:2).
At the same time, parental authority is not absolute. It is restricted to those who, according to their particular culture, are regarded as minors. Moreover, if children have a duty to their parents, parents also have a duty to their children. They must neither “exasperate” nor “embitter” them but rather “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4; Col. 3:21). The reciprocal nature of their duties should place a firm check on both.
As life expectancy rises in the Western world, and the average age of the population rises proportionately, an increasing number of old and infirm people are neglected and even forgotten by their own children. It is a shocking phenomenon largely confined to the West. In Africa and Asia the extended family always finds room for the elderly. So does the traditional Chinese culture. I think we should give Paul the last word on this matter: “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8).
For further reading: Ephesians 6:1–4