Where Does Honor Begin?
Wednesday Evening Bible Class

Jim Davis

The first four commandments deal with our relationship with God. The last six commandments deal with our relationship with people. The first four commandments instruct us to put God first. The last six commandments teach us what happens to our relationship with others when we put God first. We must not forget that our relationship with each other is governed by our relationship with God.

When Christ came, he not only sought to reconcile the world to himself, but he also sought to reconcile us to one another. We must remember, there can be no reconciliation with God when we are not reconciled to each other. A failure to have proper relationship with others is a sure sign of a failed relationship with God.

Ephesians 2:13-18
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. (NIV)

In the immediate context Paul is speaking of Jew and Gentile, but it applies to all. Christ came to make peace. He seeks to destroy the hostility between us through the cross as he reconciles us to God in one body, which is the church. Christ seeks to bring peace to our relationships by recreating us in his own image. Christ came to reconcile us to God through the love manifested on the cross. However, that same love must reconcile us to each other as we exemplify the same sacrificial love to those around us.

Parents to Exemplify Sacrificial Love

When you read the fifth commandment, "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 NIV),

you must understand what is implied. It implies that parents are putting God first. They are exemplifying submission to God for their children, just as Christ exemplified God's sacrificial love for us. Of course, if the parents are not exemplifying this behavior, it doesn't negate the fifth commandment for the children. It just makes the children's life more difficult, for the children have no example to follow. They will have to wing it on their own.

However, Ezekiel impresses us with the truth that we cannot blame our behavior on others. Even if our parents have set bad examples, we must not follow their example. "The word of the LORD came to me: "What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: 'The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge'? "As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son-- both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die." (Ezekiel 18:1-4 NIV)

Our parent's sins do not justify our sin. Our teeth don't have to be set on edge just because our parents have eaten sour grapes. We must remember that the fifth commandment does not require that we have loving, stable, and thoughtful parents in order to become healthy ourselves. It is required that we learn to honor the parents we have, whether we like them or not, whether they earn it or not.

Parents Responsibility to Teach Children

There is a crucial aspect of our relationship with the world. The world must be able to see that God comes first in our lives. This is especially true with our children. The fifth commandment instructs children to, "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 NIV) I think we can safely assume that the parents being honored understand their need to honor God. Solomon writes, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6 NIV)

God chose Abraham because he knew that Abraham would rear God-fearing children.

"For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him." (Genesis 18:19 NIV)

The law instructed the parents to teach the children.

Deuteronomy 6:1-9
These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (NIV)

Deuteronomy 6:17-25
Be sure to keep the commands of the LORD your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. Do what is right and good in the LORD's sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers, thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the LORD said. In the future, when your son asks you, "What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?" tell him: "We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the LORD sent miraculous signs and wonders-- great and terrible-- upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers. The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness." (NIV)

The ordinances of the law were given with the children in mind.

Exodus 12:24-27
"Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' then tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.'" Then the people bowed down and worshiped. (NIV)

Deuteronomy 4:9-10
Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, "Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children." (NIV)

Deuteronomy 11:19-21
Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth. (NIV)

Psalms 78:1-8
O my people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old--what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands. They would not be like their forefathers-- a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him. (NIV)

Jews were seeking to negate the responsibility of grown children to their parents.

Matthew 15:4-9
For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" (NIV)

Stern warnings were issued against those who were irresponsible to parents.

Proverbs 28:24
He who robs his father or mother and says, "It's not wrong"-- he is partner to him who destroys. (NIV)

Proverbs 30:11-14
"There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers; those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth; those whose eyes are ever so haughty, whose glances are so disdainful; those whose teeth are swords and whose jaws are set with knives to devour the poor from the earth, the needy from among mankind. (NIV)

Proverbs 30:17
"The eye that mocks a father, that scorns obedience to a mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures. (NIV)

Exodus 21:15, 17
Anyone who attacks his father or his mother must be put to death . . . Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. (NIV)

Deuteronomy 21:18-21
If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid. (NIV)

The New Testament places parental responsibility upon Christians.

The fifth commandment doesn't just speak to small children. It speaks to those children who have grown up and have families of their own.

1 Timothy 5:3-4
Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. (NIV)

Titus 2:1-5
You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. (NIV)

Parents are to rear children without instilling anger. It is not good to rear children with fear and discipline them with guilt; we must rear them out of love for them.

Ephesians 6:4
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother"-- which is the first commandment with a promise--"that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. (NIV)

A stern warning is given for those who refuse to take care of family.

1 Timothy 5:8
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. (NIV)

The Far-reaching Consequences

Exodus 20:12
"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you. (NIV)

The importance of the fifth commandment is seen in its far-reaching implications to other areas of our lives. The precepts of the fifth commandment, forms the transition of a relationship with God to a relationship with our fellowman as seen in the remainder of the commandments. God was to be honored by the parents as they sought a proper relationship with their children. In turn the children learned how to honor those with whom they came into contact as they seek to honor God.

Children learn how to respond to others by how we interact with them. Learning how to be a good Christian begins at home.

1 Timothy 5:1-2
Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. (NIV)

Good citizenship begins in the home. The key to living long in the land of promise was a respect for godly authority, which was to exemplified by the parents. It is not a commandment that is simply talking about physical life. It is a commandment, which speaks of the longevity of a nation.

This commandment has to do with interpersonal relationships in all of life. The demand for reverence for parents lays the foundation for the sanctification of all social life, inasmuch as it teaches us to acknowledge a divine authority. (The Pentateuch, The Second Book of Moses, Keil-Delitzsch, page 122.)

The prosperity and well-being of a nation depends upon the reverence of children toward their parents."

"There is a double promise here. So long as the nation rejoiced in the possession of obedient children, it was assured of a long life or existence in the land of Canaan; but there is also included the promise of a long life, i.e. a great age, to individuals (cf. Deut. 6:2, 22:7), just as we find in 1 Kings 3:14 a good age referred to as a special blessing from God. In Deut. 5:15, the promise of long life is followed by the words, 'and that it may be well with thee,' which do not alter the sense, but merely explain it more fully." (The Pentateuch, The Second Book of Moses, Keil-Delitzsch, page 122.)

Conclusion:

It is from this commandment that we can begin to understand how God seeks to reconcile the world to himself, as he reconciles each of us to him through the cross.