Honor Your Father and Your Daughter
On August 26, 2017, three days after the death of my grandfather, I had the privilege of standing at a pulpit in a funeral home in Greer, South Carolina — with his casket there in front of me — and seeking to honor my grandfather.
Granddaddy died at the age of 92. Which means one thing I got to see in my own father, as his father aged, was his opportunity to “make some return,” as the apostle Paul calls it, on all that Granddaddy had done for him. Even though, as a son, I never witnessed my father’s childhood, that does not mean that I never saw him honor his father. Honoring father and mother is not an 18-year season until you move out of the house. Honoring father and mother, in its developing and changing expressions, is a lifelong calling. Here’s how Paul speaks to honoring an aging parent:
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. (1 Timothy 5:4)
Honoring father and mother, as we’ll see, is much bigger than childhood obedience. That’s just the beginning. It’s not less than that. But it is more.
Learning to Honor God
This is our fifth message on the Ten Commandments, and today we move from the so-called “first table” (the first four, which are expressly Godward) to the “second table” (the last six, which are more horizontal, toward fellow humans).
Of the last six commandments, there is something appropriate about “honor your father and your mother” being the hinge from the first table to the second. Dad and Mom are very much like God to young children. It’s Dad and Mom that they know first, and learn to honor first, and in doing so, they are learning to honor God.
So, here’s the plan for this morning: Let’s walk the path from the cradle to the grave, more or less, as we consider what it means to honor father and mother, not just in childhood but throughout life, and how it extends into all areas of life. As with the first four commandments (and as we’ll see with the remaining five), there’s more to it than first meets the eye, and how the ripple effects go out into all of life.
In the Home
Let’s start in the home, in infancy. And as toddlers. The first and immediate meaning of the fifth commandment is the very basic: “Obey daddy and mommy.” Daddy and mommy have been alive much longer than you. And they are bigger and stronger than you. And for now, they are smarter than you. And they love you. And they (should) have more patience. In God’s plan, Dad and Mom are to be our first allegiance.
But honor is not just external (obedience and submission); also there is a heart attitude we might call reverence. And another aspect, we might say, is gratitude. Overall, there is a progress to these in life: first, children, obey; then grow in reverence, and then also appreciation or gratitude. In other words, what it means to honor father and mother develops and fills out as the child grows. There’s a fitted-ness to various stages of life, from toddlers to younger children, to older children, to young adulthood, and eventually “making some return” on aging parents (1 Timothy 5:4).
Also, we should note this honor is not absolute. Certain honor befits certain relationships. For instance, “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord” (Colossians 3:18). For very small children, obedience to Dad and Mom is absolute. But as we grow, it becomes less so. And as we grow, we come to see that only Christ has our absolute honor, and all others are derived from, and tempered with respect to, our honoring Christ.
Father and Mother
We should note that the commandment here doesn’t just say “parents” but calls attention specifically to “your father and your mother.” Again, the nature of honor befits the nature of the relationship. Moms and dads are different, equally worthy of honor, and it’s appropriate to express honor to each of them in ways befitting their differences. In 1 Thessalonians 2:8–12, Paul gives one example, among many, of the characteristic differences of mothers and fathers:
We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. (1 Thessalonians 2:8)
You know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:11-12)
Even though Paul, a man, is the one acting in both situations, it is fitting to speak of one as motherly and the other as fatherly. Moms nurse; dads name. Moms console and encircle and share their own selves; they make a safe place that a child can return to. And dads exhort and challenge and lead their children out into the world to grow into their potential. Not that dads don’t comfort and moms don’t challenge. But in the great dance of masculinity and femininity, or motherhood and fatherhood, certain aspects of parenting are characteristically motherly or fatherly. And the fifth commandment doesn’t just say honor your parents, but father and mother. (Perhaps consider this, come Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day. How might you express honor and thanks to your mother as a mother, not just a virtuous human, and honor and thanks to your father as a father.)
So, the honor of the fifth commandment is a complex honor. It is not just “obey daddy and mommy” but oh what begins there! In fact, it is not a stretch to say that honoring, obeying, and respecting proper authorities in all of life begins here, with father and mother.
Beyond the Home
This initial, most basic of human relationships (child to parent, until later replaced by marriage) extends, as we grow, to teachers, coaches, law enforcement, employers, pastors, and marriage, in their various senses.
Parents teach us that there are authorities in the world and what it’s like to be under them (John Frame: “Every authority structure carries an obligation similar to the obligations of children to parents”).
This is one of the major ways the breakdown of the family leads to the breakdown of society. Children who don’t learn to honor their father and mother, do not honor their teachers, or coaches, or policemen, or employers, or eventually their spouses. Which is why fathers and mothers do their children such a great service in cultivating honor in them. (When disciplining my children, I often remind myself and them that I love them too much not to discipline them.
Which leads to this strange promise, which, as Paul says in Ephesians 6, gives the fifth commandment the distinction of being first with a promise.
Promise of Prosperity?
Look again at verse 12: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” What is this promise of prosperity, “that your days may be long in the land”?
It is not a crass system of rewards in which one action, or pattern of actions, earns an enticement that is unrelated to the action. It is not trying to appeal to our desire for long life to just get us to do something we don’t want to do, namely, honor father and mother.
Rather, the promise is a general principle extending the effects of action. And the promise shows us the value, and hopefully helps change our appreciation, of the significance of the commandment. Part of it going well for you — “that your days may be long in the land” — is learning at home how to navigate a world of authority and submission. The promise not only reflects a general principle that obeying God brings blessing — and even more specific than that, the kind of people who live long and flourish are those who learned the basics of human life in learning to honor father and mother.
My impression is that we are far more prone to see humans as hard wired than we ought. Our brains are not hardwired. They are “soft.” It’s called neuroplasticity. They are amazingly adaptable. And it is hard to understate the profound, cascading, lifelong effects on a person as his brain is being formed in those early years. One of the ways, among many, that humans are distinct from the animal kingdom is the size and complexity of our brains and (accordingly) how long it takes for them to develop into their adult stage (about fifteen years). A child’s first two years, and first five years, and ten, and fifteen, are massive in shaping a trajectory of life.
And when a child learns, day after day, week after week, month after patient month, to honor his father and his mother, the long-term effects in life for good are incalculable. Honoring teachers, and honoring coaches, are clear extensions of honoring parents. And both church and state are extensions of the family (when families grow large enough and numerous enough to need order among them). Learning to appropriately honor authorities in all spheres of life are rooted in learning to honor father and mother in childhood.
And when I say authority, don’t hear that as demeaning. Authority is a blessing. Let that sink in; it is very countercultural. Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth. Authority in the hands of a worthy leader is a gift, for the good of those in his care. Authority is a good that can be misused by sinful people, but it is not an evil in itself.
What we see in the Scriptures, as we move forward from the parent-child relationship, are other human relationships of authority and submission for which we were prepared by learning to honor father and mother. So let’s rehearse those and see what God has to say about them.
The first, of course, is marriage. Wives are under the authority (remember that’s a good word, for the good of others) of their husband.
Colossians 3:18: Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
Ephesians 5:22–24: Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
1 Peter 3:1: Wives, be subject to your own husbands.
Titus 2:4: [older women are to] train the young women to [be] submissive to their own husbands.
And, as we’ve said, relationships of authority and submission extend into the world. Honoring father and mother prepares servants to honor their masters — and by extension employees, their employer:
Colossians 3:22: Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
Ephesians 6:5: Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ.
Titus 2:9: Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything.
1 Peter 2:18: Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust.
1 Timothy 6:1: Let all who are under a yoke as bondservants regard their own masters as worthy of all honor.
This also includes civil authorities:
Romans 13:1: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
Titus 3:1: Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.
1 Peter 2:13–14: Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.
1 Peter 2:17: Honor the emperor.
And in the church:
1 Thessalonians 5:12–13: We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.
1 Timothy 5:17: Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor.
Hebrews 13:17: Obey your leaders and submit to them.
In fact, in some sense, all people deserve honor, not just those who are our “superiors”:
Romans 12:10: Outdo one another in showing honor.
1 Peter 2:17: Honor everyone.
With Love from Westminster
The Westminster Larger Catechism (completed in 1647) is really helpful on the extensive implications of the fifth commandment. (Question 125: superiors are called “to work inferiors to a greater willingness and cheerfulness in performing their duties to their superiors, as to their parents.”)
Questions 127 and 128 ask about the honor that is due “superiors,” those in authority, by those who are to be in submission (“inferiors”). Let me read those two for you. It’s old English, so you may need to listen carefully.
Q. 127. What is the honor that inferiors owe to their superiors?
A. The honor which inferiors owe to their superiors is, all due reverence in heart, word, and behavior; prayer and thanksgiving for them; imitation of their virtues and graces; willing obedience to their lawful [note that] commands and counsels; due submission to their corrections; fidelity to, defense, and maintenance of their persons and authority, according to their several ranks, and the nature of their places; bearing with their infirmities, and covering them in love, that so they may be an honor to them and to their government.
Q. 128. What are the sins of inferiors against their superiors?
A. The sins of inferiors against their superiors are, all neglect of the duties required toward them; envying at, contempt of, and rebellion against their persons and places, in their lawful [note again] counsels, commands, and corrections; cursing, mocking, and all such refractory and scandalous carriage, as proves a shame and dishonor to them and their government.
However, this is important, Westminster doesn’t stop here with the honor due superiors, and the sins of inferiors against them. The Westminster divines believed that more is implied in the fifth commandment than simply the obligations of the inferior to the superior. Also there is a kind of honor due to inferiors from their superiors, and there are sins of superiors against the inferiors. Questions 127 and 128 are followed immediately by Questions 129 and 130:
Q. 129. What is required of superiors towards their inferiors?
A. It is required of superiors, according to that power they receive from God, and that relation wherein they stand, to love, pray for, and bless their inferiors; to instruct, counsel, and admonish them; countenancing, commending, and rewarding such as do well; and discountenancing, reproving, and chastising such as do ill; protecting, and providing for them all things necessary for soul and body: and by grave, wise, holy, and exemplary carriage, to procure glory to God, honor to themselves, and so to preserve that authority which God hath put upon them.
Q. 130. What are the sins of superiors?
A. The sins of superiors are, besides the neglect of the duties required of them, an inordinate seeking of themselves, their own glory, ease, profit, or pleasure; commanding things unlawful, or not in the power of inferiors to perform; counseling, encouraging, or favoring them in that which is evil; dissuading, discouraging, or discountenancing them in that which is good; correcting them unduly; careless exposing, or leaving them to wrong, temptation, and danger; provoking them to wrath; or any way dishonoring themselves, or lessening their authority, by an unjust, indiscreet, rigorous, or remiss behavior.
In the parent-child relationship, and master-servant, and husband-wife, and governor-citizen, there is not only honor due from the lesser to the greater, but also honor due the inferior from the superior. In all, there is equality in our common humanity and difference in divine calling and its attendant authority.
God rejects both equality without authority (what we might call egalitarianism) and authority without equality (what we might call authoritarianism).
In every relationship of authority, there is also appropriate “honor” that is due from superior to inferior.
Husbands to wives:
Colossians 3:19: Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
Ephesians 5:25: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
Masters to servants:
Ephesians 6:9: Masters, do the same to [your servants], and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.
Colossians 4:1: Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.
Pastors to their people:
Hebrews 13:17: Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
1 Peter 5:1–3: I exhort the elders . . . shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.
And finally, we come back to fathers and mothers with their children. And here, let’s press home the meaning of the fifth commandment for those of us no longer in our parents’ homes, and now married and with children of our own. Good parents don’t think that the fifth commandment is just for our kids. Dads and moms, it’s mainly for us. It is our charge to cultivate honor for us in them — and God also calls us, within the parent-child relationship of authority and submission, to honor our children.
So, what kind of honor do parents owe their children? We started with, Kids, obey your parents. Now we finish with, Parents, love your kids. And love them enough to patiently discipline them. Sacrifice selfish comforts and ease for them. Be honor-able. And in particular dads. Both Ephesians and Colossians single out dads (with no explicit word to moms):
Colossians 3:21: Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
Ephesians 6:4: Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
It is striking — perhaps especially for the most disciplinarian among us — that the apostle doesn’t summarize the task of fatherhood as, “Make sure to establish and exercise authority over your children.” Rather, given the authority that fathers already have by ordinance of God, Paul cautions fathers to exercise it with care, and be mindful not to harm their children, but help them.
Having them as our children, instructed by the Lord to obey us, is patently no excuse for sinning against our children. If anything, it is all the more reason to pursue every means possible, with God’s help, to treat them with the utmost Christian kindness and respect — to honor them.
We may even go so far as to say that our children, of all people, should be the ones we treat best, not worst, given their vulnerability and our calling as parents to care for them.
Sadly, the members of our own household are often the witnesses of our true selves and recipients of our poorest treatment. So, Paul’s charge not to provoke our children is a penetrating warning not to abuse the remarkable stewardship God has given us parents for the nurturing of our children. It is especially grave when we sin against our children — because they are our children and the very essence of our relationship with them is for their good and not their harm. Among the sinful attitudes and actions of our lives that we should grieve most are those expressed against our children.
Which really humbles us in our calling as fathers and mothers. With authority comes more responsibility. This means that even more important than the work God is doing through us in parenting is the work he is doing in us while parenting. Parenting, we might say, is first about our sin, not our kids’ sin.
It’s not a question as to whether we sin against our child. All parents sin against their children. The question is whether we recognize and confess our sin, and ask our God and our children for forgiveness.
Prayer for Father and Mothers
Let’s close with a prayer for dads and moms. I’d like to take Westminster’s wise answer to Question 130 and turn it into a prayer for us, that we ask God to keep us from “the sins of superiors,” especially against our children:
Father, we come as weak men and women, desperate for your grace and help. What callings you have placed on us as fathers and mothers of your little ones! Parenting demands great energy and effort and self-sacrifice; we are often tired and discouraged. And yet this season will pass so soon.
So, Father, grant us your grace, that we may not neglect the duties required of us. Keep us from inordinate seeking of ourselves, our own glory, ease, profit, and selfish pleasure. May we never command unlawful things, nor require of our children something that’s not in their power to perform.
May we never counsel, encourage, or favor them in anything evil — or dissuade, discourage, or discountenance them in anything good. May we not correct them unduly. And in our information age, and our world of screens, may we not carelessly expose or leave them to wrong, temptation, and danger. May we not provoke them to wrath. And may we not in any way dishonor ourselves, or lessen our authority, by unjust, indiscreet, rigorous, or remiss behavior. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.
Honor God Your Father
As we come to the Table — which is a good place for sinful and repentant children and parents to come — we remember one more time why parenting is so important. Not just are we preparing our children to honor their teachers and coaches and policemen and government authorities, and spouse. Most significantly, we are training our children to honor their God. God gives us children to prepare them for him. In learning to obey daddy and mommy in these precious few years, our children are learning to obey and reverence God for all eternity.
He is the ultimate Father, who sent his Son, to rescue us from the dishonor and penalty of our sin. So, this morning, let’s honor our Father together as we share in the Table of his Son.