Honour thy father and mother; ( which is the first commandment with promise;)
Honoring father and mother is the duty of children to show them obedience, respect and loving care, and it is the first commandment to which a promise is attached. It restates the fifth commandment spoken from Sinai, and it stands alone as the only commandment with a promise annexed to it. That honor means heeding parental instruction and authority, speaking and acting with tenderness, reverence and love, sharing home burdens faithfully, and caring for parents in suffering and old age. The promise joined to it is that it shall go well with the obedient and they shall live long on the earth, a blessing conditional on obedience that pledges long life in Canaan and extends to eternal life freed from the curse, with health, peace and entrance into the holy city for the faithful and exclusion from the renewed earth for the rebellious. The duty remains binding after children are grown and married, yet God's claim comes first so that a command breaking God's law must not be obeyed, and parents must teach this honor from infancy with patient, firm love without harshness or provoking, since yielding to parents trains the will to yield to God.
Verse Wording and Setting
The command is addressed to children to honor father and mother, and it names this honor as the first commandment with promise. Joined to the next verse, the promise is that it may be well with the obedient and that they may live long on the earth. This honoring is learned first in the sanctuary of the home as training in submission and surrender to Christ under Prince Emmanuel, and heeding it makes children wise unto salvation. It is shown by faithfully and unselfishly carrying home responsibilities and burdens, while careless neglect of those duties is an abomination and education pursued at the expense of filial duties and the soul's interests is immeasurable loss. Children are to be trained from early childhood to obey God's requirements, and parents are responsible for teaching them to honor God and to understand the promise, raising them with discipline and guidance by God's Spirit to submit to His will and to strengthen character.
The command restates the fifth commandment spoken by Jehovah from Sinai and written with His own finger on tables of stone. That fifth commandment concerns duties to other people. Honoring father and mother is therefore both the fifth commandment and the first commandment with promise.
It is the only commandment with a promise annexed or attached to it. It stands joined to the instruction for children to obey parents in the Lord because it is right. It stands joined also to the charge to fathers not to provoke children to wrath but to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, as words of the Holy One spoken to parents and children as part of God's marked-out plan for the education of children which parents are to follow. Obedience to God thus involves children obeying their parents, which parents are to teach faithfully while guiding their children in a life of obedience.
What Honor Requires
Honoring father and mother includes obedience, heeding parental advice, instruction and requirements, being governable at home and accepting counsel and restraint, for willing obedience to parents is part of obedience to God and refusing it is incompatible with being a Christian. Respectful, obedient, thankful, unpeevish conduct is owed, parents are to hold the lines to govern and not be governed by their children, and learning to obey them trains the will to yield in preparation for obeying God. It requires respecting parental authority and remaining subject to parents' control while living in the home and depending on them. That authority is to be affectionately respected with solemn force, joined to the parental duty to train children in obedience, self-denial and reverence for God's law, since failure to teach it can lead children to disregard God's commands with grave consequences.
Honoring means treating parents with tenderness, respect and reverence in conduct and speech, in respectful, obedient, thankful, unpeevish behavior and faithful performance of duty in response to their care, without unrestrained, passionate or profane words. To curse parents is to curse God, and disrespect and rebellion bring God's curse upon the disobedient. It includes loving and cherishing parents, valuing the love and approval of God-fearing parents above every earthly blessing, giving up personal wishes and pleasure, regarding their wishes, treating them with kindness and love, causing them no pain by pursuing one's own desires and plans, and making their happiness a central aim and principal study of life. Christian children make their parents' happiness a serious concern, and without proper instruction, discipline and right instruction children may fail to recognize obligation, becoming more ungrateful and less respectful the more is done for them, expecting to be petted and waited upon and carrying helpless, exacting, murmuring dependence into manhood and womanhood.
It is shown by faithfully and unselfishly sharing home burdens and performing everyday domestic duties, even simple and humble ones, to the best of one's ability, working quickly and neatly, since careless neglect of those duties is an abomination to the Lord. Such cheerful part in domestic life brings God's approval with loving assurance, elevating the doer and bringing peace and sacred joy, while useful labor is less harmful than dwelling on self and yielding to discouragement. A child old enough to support himself honors a father by obeying his authority, listening to his counsel, helping carry burdens and not despising or disregarding him, and cannot expect food, clothing or schooling while refusing to be obedient and helpful.
It requires caring for parents when they suffer or cannot care for themselves, giving them love, tenderness, sympathy, cheer, a home and practical help, cheerfully and faithfully doing duty even through hardship, with God seeing such devotion and rewarding faithful service. This obligation lasts while parents and children live, whether parents are believers or unbelievers, agreeable or disagreeable, supplying their needs, refusing to leave them to strangers, smoothing their pathway to the grave and making their last days their best days, for aged parents have little joy and comfort at best. Giving a home without love still fails the command, and neglect, indifference, heartlessness, selfishness and unkindness violate God's commands. It includes regarding parents, respecting their judgment, knowledge, experience, ability in managing affairs and approval, listening to their teachings and counsel, seeking it before important choices such as romantic attachment, submitting to their guidance and following their requirements. Honoring a mother means respecting her judgment, following her counsel, holding her happiness in highest regard, and acting the part of a dutiful son with attention, courtesy and respect from religious principle, turning from worldly allurements and standing free in the Lord, which gives esteem and influence as evidence of sterling worth. Disregarding such counsel can bring trouble to children and parents, despising a father's counsel and showing too little concern for his interests fails to honor him, and following one's own way against parents' counsel dishonors them.
Promise of Blessing
The promise joined to the command in the following verse is that it may go well with the obedient and that they may live long on the earth. It is well with those who obey God's commandments, and honoring does not require obeying a parental command that would break God's law, for God's claim comes first while children still respect parents wherever they can do so conscientiously without hatred or dishonor. This honor is to be learned first in the sanctuary of the home as training in submission and surrender to Christ, making children wise unto salvation, and children are to be trained from early childhood to obey God's requirements.
The promise was a pledge of long life in Canaan to obedient Israel, and it also extends to all God's people as eternal life on the earth freed from sin's curse. The promise is conditional on obedience, so blessing follows those who obey, while disobedience forfeits it. This duty binds at every stage of life regardless of parents' faults, and filial obedience belongs to God's enduring law and promotes the happiness and peace of parents and children.
For obedient children the promise includes health of body and peace of mind, and for parents a larger share in social enjoyment and healthful recreation and longer lives. God's approval rests with loving assurance upon children who cheerfully take part in domestic duties and share the burdens of father and mother, and children so trained go out to be useful members of society with an education superior to close confinement in the schoolroom at an early age when neither mind nor body can endure the strain. Children who love and obey their parents are promised entry into the holy city, where there is harmony and joy.
Those who dishonor and disobey parents and disregard their advice can have no part in the earth made new, for the purified new earth will be no place for rebellious, disobedient, ungrateful sons or daughters, and no commandment-breaker can inherit the kingdom of heaven. Unless obedience and submission are learned here they will never be learned, and the peace of the ransomed will not be marred or disturbed by disobedient, unruly, unsubmissive children or by rebellion. Those who do not respect and love parents will never reverence God and will never be deemed worthy of a place in the new earth.
A blessing is pronounced upon those who honor father and mother, commending obedient care to the world and to heaven. Honoring means respecting and obeying parents, especially in speech, and to speak with unrestrained, passionate, profane words openly transgresses the command, for when a child curses its parents it curses God. Such dishonor sinks character, builds a terrible account to God, and forfeits peace, happiness, and elevation, while stopping rebellion and curbing the unruly tongue opens the way to the promised blessing, and those who dishonor parents should not expect God's blessing.
Parents Teaching Role
Parents are responsible for teaching children to honor God and to honor father and mother, and to understand the promise that it may go well with them and they may live long on the earth. This duty is part of right obedience in the Lord and of raising children with discipline to submit to God's will and Spirit and to live a life of obedience. It is taught by instruction and example, with parents living so that their children can honor them, and children are to be taught it as part of God's rules for family life.
Honor and obedience must be taught from infancy and earliest years, as part of training from early childhood to obey God's requirements. Disrespect, self-will, and hasty words are never to be left uncorrected or unrebuked. Learning to obey parents in this way also teaches children to reverence and obey God, with benefit reaching beyond this life. This early training includes carrying a share of home burdens, learning quick and neat work, learning that obligations between parents and children are mutual, and parents and children becoming acquainted and learning together to fulfill duty to God and to one another. A mother best helps the church by devoting time to training her dependent children, since a well-disciplined, well-ordered family exerts a more powerful influence for Christianity than sermons.
Parents must require obedience while holding the lines to govern and not being governed by their children, making it their special work to teach obedience with kindness and affection. This requiring is to be done with patience, kindness, fairness, forbearance, firmness, and love, remaining firm in right principles while living under God's rule and setting a faithful example. Filial obedience belongs to God's enduring law and promotes the happiness and peace of parents and children, and blessing follows those who obey on condition of obedience. Teaching children to obey parental authority educates them to submit to God's authority, for respect for earthly parents is connected to respect for the heavenly Father.
The command gives no license for harsh or unreasonable treatment, severity, oppression, provoking, or discouraging children. Parents and children alike are subjects of the heavenly Father to be ruled by God, and the law of God in home life and in the government of nations flows from a heart of infinite love. Justice and love are to be blended, with children treated with tenderness and respect as the Lord's property by creation and by redemption. They are not to be driven, intimidated, or governed by overbearing words, stern rebuke, hard cold commands, faultfinding, and threats that produce slavish fear, destroy confidence, provoke deception and criticism, and expel love. Instead they are to be bound to the heart with love and with a wise, tender, God-fearing spirit that gives sweet water, not bitter, placing honor before them as Thus saith the Lord from the open Bible impressed on the heart.
The home is the sanctuary where this honor is first learned as training in submission and surrender to Christ under Prince Emmanuel, and heeding this counsel makes children wise unto salvation. The family is the greatest of all educational agencies ordained by God, where the education of the child begins with lessons that guide through life. There children are to learn obedience and parents are to guide them by sound principles, with parents and children, masters and servants, employers and employed learning duty and doctrine from the Word under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as Christ's ambassadors. This calls for the whole heart to be consecrated to God for Him to mold and fashion after the divine similitude in a great work that will be cut short in righteousness.
Neglecting this work harms children and is a sin against them and God, for parental discipline and instruction train children to yield their will in preparation to obey God. If children are allowed to be disrespectful and disobedient at home, their sins lie at the door of the parents. When parents neglect to govern their children according to right principles and to cultivate home religion with the fear of God circulating through the family, the enemy is given opportunity to gain control of the children's lives. Children who are allowed to disregard parental authority are never happy, and the early years of life are the time to prepare to become members of the royal family, children of God and citizens of His kingdom, a privilege parents and youth should acknowledge with thanksgiving in prayer and praise.
Parents stand in the place of God toward their little ones, and as they desire God to be kind to them they are to be kind and compassionate to their children. Respect shown to parents honors God because parents are among those called to speak and act in His stead, yet a tender parent never allows a child to act contrary to the will and way of God. Right home education leads youth to respect the father in his role as priest of the household and to regard the mother as princess of the home, lightening her burdens and helping preserve her strength for her work on their behalf. Children's obedience, respect, and filial love toward parents remain binding throughout the lives of both child and parents, and parents' duty and care toward children continue for as long as both live, with obligations between them mutual.
Lifelong Scope and Limits
The obligation to honor father and mother does not end with childhood but stays binding after children are of age, marry, and have families of their own. Grown sons and daughters are still required to respect their parents, to look after their comfort, and to listen to the counsel of godly parents, since added years never release them from the duty. Parental authority is to be affectionately respected even when children are grown and have households of their own, and the duty of filial love with obedience and respect continues as long as both child and parents live, just as parents' care continues as long as both live. Children remain bound to respect and obey their parents unless their wishes conflict with duty to God, and the command carries a promise for those who keep it.
When parents are absent, the same duty applies to a guardian or to those with whom a young person lives, who are to be treated as counselors and in some respects as rulers, with acceptance of home restraints, and the same obedience owed to caregivers as to parents. A daughter's duty to her mother continues after marriage and no husband may separate her from it. Respectful, attentive treatment is due to a wife's mother and relatives as worthy of notice, and the husband himself is under obligation to act as a son toward his wife's mother, which changes the condition of the home, makes happy married life possible, and is required in order to be any spiritual help to unbelieving relatives.
God's claim comes first, so honoring parents does not require obeying a parental command that would break God's law. When unbelieving parents command what conflicts with Christ's requirements, children must obey God rather than parents, yet the command to honor remains binding and children must still treat parents respectfully, care for them when able and given opportunity, respect them wherever they conscientiously can, and never hate or dishonor them. Both parents and children alike stand as subjects of the heavenly Father to be ruled by God. The law allows neither filial disobedience nor parental severity or oppression, but in home life and in the government of nations it flows from a heart of infinite love.
Honoring parents governs courtship and marriage by respecting their counsel and consent rather than secret conduct. Leading a young woman away from duty to obey and honor her parents, including through secret courtship, violates the plain command, is not honorable Christian conduct, disregards God's commands so that the man cannot be trusted to keep marriage obligations, and a marriage begun through such deception is not according to God's word. No engagement should be urged or continued against the known wishes of God-fearing parents, and to slight a mother's love and dishonor a father's care for a lover's claim, to disregard their wishes and mature judgment, or to set aside the duty for romantic feelings, is sin and a breach of the only commandment with a promise annexed to it. A daughter's first duty is to obey and honor her parents, she should follow her mother's judgment about a marriage believed to harm her welfare and happiness, and a mother has a duty to guard her daughter's future happiness and may refuse a connection she considers unwise.
Honoring also includes keeping home attractive in affection, not hastily leaving the parental roof to give affections and services to a stranger, but remaining to be a comfort and blessing to parents and manifesting love in words and kind attentions. Before any marriage contract, children should carefully weigh how absence from home would affect the happiness of parents and whether in their feebleness they need the help only the child can give, and they should not allow a lover's claims to override parental claims or deprive needy parents of help. Education pursued at the expense of filial duties and the soul's interests is immeasurable loss, while careless neglect of home responsibilities and burdens is an abomination to the Lord. Honoring means cheerfully taking part in domestic duties and sharing father and mother's burdens, and youth so trained in practical duties go out to be useful members of society with an education far superior to close confinement in the schoolroom at an early age when neither mind nor body is strong enough to endure the strain.
A son who chooses independence while disregarding his father's wishes and refusing obedience and helpfulness cannot expect his father to provide food, clothing, or schooling. Honoring a father includes obeying his authority, listening to his counsel, helping carry burdens, and not despising or disregarding him, so that a child old enough to support himself should not expect support while refusing to be obedient and helpful. Persuading children to enter monastic life against their parents' wishes violated filial love and duty and made God's command ineffective through human tradition. A father who permits his children's disobedience and disrespect toward their mother fails to uphold the command to honor parents. A man's respect and care for his mother indicates whether he will treat his wife with respect, love, kindness, and attention, and disregard for his mother calls those qualities into question.
Training Judgment and Eternity
Yielding the will to parents trains children to yield the will to God and to submit to the Spirit of Christ, and obedience learned at home leads to obedience to the heavenly Father. This respect and obedience is to be taught from infancy, for learning to submit the will to parents prepares for submission to God and His requirements, and its benefit reaches beyond this life. Without such childhood discipline, submission to God's instruction becomes difficult in later religious life, while early training shapes later religious experience and character.
Learning to obey parental authority educates children to submit to the authority of God, and respect for earthly parents is bound up with respect for the heavenly Father. Honoring father and mother in respectful, obedient, thankful, unpeevish conduct includes treating parents and one another with respect, correcting disrespectful speech, and learning to love God. Neglecting or dishonoring parents violates the fifth commandment and fails to respect God, and those who do not respect and love their parents will never reverence God. Dutiful, respectful conduct toward parents and regard for their wishes is part of preparation to become members of the family of heaven, the royal family and citizens of God's kingdom.
Youth must know the claims of the verse because they will be judged by it and rewarded according to deeds done in the body, and disobedience to parents in the Lord brings judgment. Disrespect for parents and rebellion against their counsel brings the curse of God upon the disobedient, and that curse falls also upon any institution that retains them and gives them further opportunity to pervert other youth. Those in responsible positions become partakers of the sin if indifferent to the course of the insubordinate and impenitent, and must guard the interests of the cause like sleepless sentinels against spiritual contamination.
Dishonor sinks character in rectitude and moral value, builds a terrible account to God, and forfeits peace, happiness, and elevation, while neglect, indifference, heartlessness, selfishness, and unkindness are kept as crime in heaven's books, grieve heaven, and leave bitter remorse like a millstone and regret-filled days. Those who dishonor parents should not expect God's blessing, and disobeying parents and neglecting the simple duties expected of them brings confusion into the home. Widespread disobedience and disrespect of children toward parents and age in the last days is specially noticed by God as a sign that the end is near, showing Satan has almost complete control of the minds of the young.
This dishonor marks a rebellious, indulged age in which children without right instruction and discipline have little sense of obligation, grow more ungrateful the more is done for them, expect to be petted and waited upon, resent it when others do not yield to them, and carry helpless, exacting dependence into manhood and womanhood. Faithful honor is not loss but brings a rich and glorious reward seen by God, and faithful, cheerful duty and care for a father even through hardship will be rewarded. Such faithfulness saves from many evils, gives esteem and influence for good as evidence of sterling worth, and a well-disciplined, well-ordered family exerts a more powerful influence for Christianity than sermons, while a young person's influence should lead others to keep the command.
Honoring father and mother is the duty of children to show them obedience, respect and loving care, and it is the first commandment to which a promise is attached. It restates the fifth commandment spoken from Sinai, and it stands alone as the only commandment with a promise annexed to it. That honor means heeding parental instruction and authority, speaking and acting with tenderness, reverence and love, sharing home burdens faithfully, and caring for parents in suffering and old age. The promise joined to it is that it shall go well with the obedient and they shall live long on the earth, a blessing conditional on obedience that pledges long life in Canaan and extends to eternal life freed from the curse, with health, peace and entrance into the holy city for the faithful and exclusion from the renewed earth for the rebellious. The duty remains binding after children are grown and married, yet God's claim comes first so that a command breaking God's law must not be obeyed, and parents must teach this honor from infancy with patient, firm love without harshness or provoking, since yielding to parents trains the will to yield to God.
Verse Wording and Setting
The command is addressed to children to honor father and mother, and it names this honor as the first commandment with promise. Joined to the next verse, the promise is that it may be well with the obedient and that they may live long on the earth. This honoring is learned first in the sanctuary of the home as training in submission and surrender to Christ under Prince Emmanuel, and heeding it makes children wise unto salvation. It is shown by faithfully and unselfishly carrying home responsibilities and burdens, while careless neglect of those duties is an abomination and education pursued at the expense of filial duties and the soul's interests is immeasurable loss. Children are to be trained from early childhood to obey God's requirements, and parents are responsible for teaching them to honor God and to understand the promise, raising them with discipline and guidance by God's Spirit to submit to His will and to strengthen character.
The command restates the fifth commandment spoken by Jehovah from Sinai and written with His own finger on tables of stone. That fifth commandment concerns duties to other people. Honoring father and mother is therefore both the fifth commandment and the first commandment with promise.
It is the only commandment with a promise annexed or attached to it. It stands joined to the instruction for children to obey parents in the Lord because it is right. It stands joined also to the charge to fathers not to provoke children to wrath but to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, as words of the Holy One spoken to parents and children as part of God's marked-out plan for the education of children which parents are to follow. Obedience to God thus involves children obeying their parents, which parents are to teach faithfully while guiding their children in a life of obedience.
What Honor Requires
Honoring father and mother includes obedience, heeding parental advice, instruction and requirements, being governable at home and accepting counsel and restraint, for willing obedience to parents is part of obedience to God and refusing it is incompatible with being a Christian. Respectful, obedient, thankful, unpeevish conduct is owed, parents are to hold the lines to govern and not be governed by their children, and learning to obey them trains the will to yield in preparation for obeying God. It requires respecting parental authority and remaining subject to parents' control while living in the home and depending on them. That authority is to be affectionately respected with solemn force, joined to the parental duty to train children in obedience, self-denial and reverence for God's law, since failure to teach it can lead children to disregard God's commands with grave consequences.
Honoring means treating parents with tenderness, respect and reverence in conduct and speech, in respectful, obedient, thankful, unpeevish behavior and faithful performance of duty in response to their care, without unrestrained, passionate or profane words. To curse parents is to curse God, and disrespect and rebellion bring God's curse upon the disobedient. It includes loving and cherishing parents, valuing the love and approval of God-fearing parents above every earthly blessing, giving up personal wishes and pleasure, regarding their wishes, treating them with kindness and love, causing them no pain by pursuing one's own desires and plans, and making their happiness a central aim and principal study of life. Christian children make their parents' happiness a serious concern, and without proper instruction, discipline and right instruction children may fail to recognize obligation, becoming more ungrateful and less respectful the more is done for them, expecting to be petted and waited upon and carrying helpless, exacting, murmuring dependence into manhood and womanhood.
It is shown by faithfully and unselfishly sharing home burdens and performing everyday domestic duties, even simple and humble ones, to the best of one's ability, working quickly and neatly, since careless neglect of those duties is an abomination to the Lord. Such cheerful part in domestic life brings God's approval with loving assurance, elevating the doer and bringing peace and sacred joy, while useful labor is less harmful than dwelling on self and yielding to discouragement. A child old enough to support himself honors a father by obeying his authority, listening to his counsel, helping carry burdens and not despising or disregarding him, and cannot expect food, clothing or schooling while refusing to be obedient and helpful.
It requires caring for parents when they suffer or cannot care for themselves, giving them love, tenderness, sympathy, cheer, a home and practical help, cheerfully and faithfully doing duty even through hardship, with God seeing such devotion and rewarding faithful service. This obligation lasts while parents and children live, whether parents are believers or unbelievers, agreeable or disagreeable, supplying their needs, refusing to leave them to strangers, smoothing their pathway to the grave and making their last days their best days, for aged parents have little joy and comfort at best. Giving a home without love still fails the command, and neglect, indifference, heartlessness, selfishness and unkindness violate God's commands. It includes regarding parents, respecting their judgment, knowledge, experience, ability in managing affairs and approval, listening to their teachings and counsel, seeking it before important choices such as romantic attachment, submitting to their guidance and following their requirements. Honoring a mother means respecting her judgment, following her counsel, holding her happiness in highest regard, and acting the part of a dutiful son with attention, courtesy and respect from religious principle, turning from worldly allurements and standing free in the Lord, which gives esteem and influence as evidence of sterling worth. Disregarding such counsel can bring trouble to children and parents, despising a father's counsel and showing too little concern for his interests fails to honor him, and following one's own way against parents' counsel dishonors them.
Promise of Blessing
The promise joined to the command in the following verse is that it may go well with the obedient and that they may live long on the earth. It is well with those who obey God's commandments, and honoring does not require obeying a parental command that would break God's law, for God's claim comes first while children still respect parents wherever they can do so conscientiously without hatred or dishonor. This honor is to be learned first in the sanctuary of the home as training in submission and surrender to Christ, making children wise unto salvation, and children are to be trained from early childhood to obey God's requirements.
The promise was a pledge of long life in Canaan to obedient Israel, and it also extends to all God's people as eternal life on the earth freed from sin's curse. The promise is conditional on obedience, so blessing follows those who obey, while disobedience forfeits it. This duty binds at every stage of life regardless of parents' faults, and filial obedience belongs to God's enduring law and promotes the happiness and peace of parents and children.
For obedient children the promise includes health of body and peace of mind, and for parents a larger share in social enjoyment and healthful recreation and longer lives. God's approval rests with loving assurance upon children who cheerfully take part in domestic duties and share the burdens of father and mother, and children so trained go out to be useful members of society with an education superior to close confinement in the schoolroom at an early age when neither mind nor body can endure the strain. Children who love and obey their parents are promised entry into the holy city, where there is harmony and joy.
Those who dishonor and disobey parents and disregard their advice can have no part in the earth made new, for the purified new earth will be no place for rebellious, disobedient, ungrateful sons or daughters, and no commandment-breaker can inherit the kingdom of heaven. Unless obedience and submission are learned here they will never be learned, and the peace of the ransomed will not be marred or disturbed by disobedient, unruly, unsubmissive children or by rebellion. Those who do not respect and love parents will never reverence God and will never be deemed worthy of a place in the new earth.
A blessing is pronounced upon those who honor father and mother, commending obedient care to the world and to heaven. Honoring means respecting and obeying parents, especially in speech, and to speak with unrestrained, passionate, profane words openly transgresses the command, for when a child curses its parents it curses God. Such dishonor sinks character, builds a terrible account to God, and forfeits peace, happiness, and elevation, while stopping rebellion and curbing the unruly tongue opens the way to the promised blessing, and those who dishonor parents should not expect God's blessing.
Parents Teaching Role
Parents are responsible for teaching children to honor God and to honor father and mother, and to understand the promise that it may go well with them and they may live long on the earth. This duty is part of right obedience in the Lord and of raising children with discipline to submit to God's will and Spirit and to live a life of obedience. It is taught by instruction and example, with parents living so that their children can honor them, and children are to be taught it as part of God's rules for family life.
Honor and obedience must be taught from infancy and earliest years, as part of training from early childhood to obey God's requirements. Disrespect, self-will, and hasty words are never to be left uncorrected or unrebuked. Learning to obey parents in this way also teaches children to reverence and obey God, with benefit reaching beyond this life. This early training includes carrying a share of home burdens, learning quick and neat work, learning that obligations between parents and children are mutual, and parents and children becoming acquainted and learning together to fulfill duty to God and to one another. A mother best helps the church by devoting time to training her dependent children, since a well-disciplined, well-ordered family exerts a more powerful influence for Christianity than sermons.
Parents must require obedience while holding the lines to govern and not being governed by their children, making it their special work to teach obedience with kindness and affection. This requiring is to be done with patience, kindness, fairness, forbearance, firmness, and love, remaining firm in right principles while living under God's rule and setting a faithful example. Filial obedience belongs to God's enduring law and promotes the happiness and peace of parents and children, and blessing follows those who obey on condition of obedience. Teaching children to obey parental authority educates them to submit to God's authority, for respect for earthly parents is connected to respect for the heavenly Father.
The command gives no license for harsh or unreasonable treatment, severity, oppression, provoking, or discouraging children. Parents and children alike are subjects of the heavenly Father to be ruled by God, and the law of God in home life and in the government of nations flows from a heart of infinite love. Justice and love are to be blended, with children treated with tenderness and respect as the Lord's property by creation and by redemption. They are not to be driven, intimidated, or governed by overbearing words, stern rebuke, hard cold commands, faultfinding, and threats that produce slavish fear, destroy confidence, provoke deception and criticism, and expel love. Instead they are to be bound to the heart with love and with a wise, tender, God-fearing spirit that gives sweet water, not bitter, placing honor before them as Thus saith the Lord from the open Bible impressed on the heart.
The home is the sanctuary where this honor is first learned as training in submission and surrender to Christ under Prince Emmanuel, and heeding this counsel makes children wise unto salvation. The family is the greatest of all educational agencies ordained by God, where the education of the child begins with lessons that guide through life. There children are to learn obedience and parents are to guide them by sound principles, with parents and children, masters and servants, employers and employed learning duty and doctrine from the Word under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as Christ's ambassadors. This calls for the whole heart to be consecrated to God for Him to mold and fashion after the divine similitude in a great work that will be cut short in righteousness.
Neglecting this work harms children and is a sin against them and God, for parental discipline and instruction train children to yield their will in preparation to obey God. If children are allowed to be disrespectful and disobedient at home, their sins lie at the door of the parents. When parents neglect to govern their children according to right principles and to cultivate home religion with the fear of God circulating through the family, the enemy is given opportunity to gain control of the children's lives. Children who are allowed to disregard parental authority are never happy, and the early years of life are the time to prepare to become members of the royal family, children of God and citizens of His kingdom, a privilege parents and youth should acknowledge with thanksgiving in prayer and praise.
Parents stand in the place of God toward their little ones, and as they desire God to be kind to them they are to be kind and compassionate to their children. Respect shown to parents honors God because parents are among those called to speak and act in His stead, yet a tender parent never allows a child to act contrary to the will and way of God. Right home education leads youth to respect the father in his role as priest of the household and to regard the mother as princess of the home, lightening her burdens and helping preserve her strength for her work on their behalf. Children's obedience, respect, and filial love toward parents remain binding throughout the lives of both child and parents, and parents' duty and care toward children continue for as long as both live, with obligations between them mutual.
Lifelong Scope and Limits
The obligation to honor father and mother does not end with childhood but stays binding after children are of age, marry, and have families of their own. Grown sons and daughters are still required to respect their parents, to look after their comfort, and to listen to the counsel of godly parents, since added years never release them from the duty. Parental authority is to be affectionately respected even when children are grown and have households of their own, and the duty of filial love with obedience and respect continues as long as both child and parents live, just as parents' care continues as long as both live. Children remain bound to respect and obey their parents unless their wishes conflict with duty to God, and the command carries a promise for those who keep it.
When parents are absent, the same duty applies to a guardian or to those with whom a young person lives, who are to be treated as counselors and in some respects as rulers, with acceptance of home restraints, and the same obedience owed to caregivers as to parents. A daughter's duty to her mother continues after marriage and no husband may separate her from it. Respectful, attentive treatment is due to a wife's mother and relatives as worthy of notice, and the husband himself is under obligation to act as a son toward his wife's mother, which changes the condition of the home, makes happy married life possible, and is required in order to be any spiritual help to unbelieving relatives.
God's claim comes first, so honoring parents does not require obeying a parental command that would break God's law. When unbelieving parents command what conflicts with Christ's requirements, children must obey God rather than parents, yet the command to honor remains binding and children must still treat parents respectfully, care for them when able and given opportunity, respect them wherever they conscientiously can, and never hate or dishonor them. Both parents and children alike stand as subjects of the heavenly Father to be ruled by God. The law allows neither filial disobedience nor parental severity or oppression, but in home life and in the government of nations it flows from a heart of infinite love.
Honoring parents governs courtship and marriage by respecting their counsel and consent rather than secret conduct. Leading a young woman away from duty to obey and honor her parents, including through secret courtship, violates the plain command, is not honorable Christian conduct, disregards God's commands so that the man cannot be trusted to keep marriage obligations, and a marriage begun through such deception is not according to God's word. No engagement should be urged or continued against the known wishes of God-fearing parents, and to slight a mother's love and dishonor a father's care for a lover's claim, to disregard their wishes and mature judgment, or to set aside the duty for romantic feelings, is sin and a breach of the only commandment with a promise annexed to it. A daughter's first duty is to obey and honor her parents, she should follow her mother's judgment about a marriage believed to harm her welfare and happiness, and a mother has a duty to guard her daughter's future happiness and may refuse a connection she considers unwise.
Honoring also includes keeping home attractive in affection, not hastily leaving the parental roof to give affections and services to a stranger, but remaining to be a comfort and blessing to parents and manifesting love in words and kind attentions. Before any marriage contract, children should carefully weigh how absence from home would affect the happiness of parents and whether in their feebleness they need the help only the child can give, and they should not allow a lover's claims to override parental claims or deprive needy parents of help. Education pursued at the expense of filial duties and the soul's interests is immeasurable loss, while careless neglect of home responsibilities and burdens is an abomination to the Lord. Honoring means cheerfully taking part in domestic duties and sharing father and mother's burdens, and youth so trained in practical duties go out to be useful members of society with an education far superior to close confinement in the schoolroom at an early age when neither mind nor body is strong enough to endure the strain.
A son who chooses independence while disregarding his father's wishes and refusing obedience and helpfulness cannot expect his father to provide food, clothing, or schooling. Honoring a father includes obeying his authority, listening to his counsel, helping carry burdens, and not despising or disregarding him, so that a child old enough to support himself should not expect support while refusing to be obedient and helpful. Persuading children to enter monastic life against their parents' wishes violated filial love and duty and made God's command ineffective through human tradition. A father who permits his children's disobedience and disrespect toward their mother fails to uphold the command to honor parents. A man's respect and care for his mother indicates whether he will treat his wife with respect, love, kindness, and attention, and disregard for his mother calls those qualities into question.
Training Judgment and Eternity
Yielding the will to parents trains children to yield the will to God and to submit to the Spirit of Christ, and obedience learned at home leads to obedience to the heavenly Father. This respect and obedience is to be taught from infancy, for learning to submit the will to parents prepares for submission to God and His requirements, and its benefit reaches beyond this life. Without such childhood discipline, submission to God's instruction becomes difficult in later religious life, while early training shapes later religious experience and character.
Learning to obey parental authority educates children to submit to the authority of God, and respect for earthly parents is bound up with respect for the heavenly Father. Honoring father and mother in respectful, obedient, thankful, unpeevish conduct includes treating parents and one another with respect, correcting disrespectful speech, and learning to love God. Neglecting or dishonoring parents violates the fifth commandment and fails to respect God, and those who do not respect and love their parents will never reverence God. Dutiful, respectful conduct toward parents and regard for their wishes is part of preparation to become members of the family of heaven, the royal family and citizens of God's kingdom.
Youth must know the claims of the verse because they will be judged by it and rewarded according to deeds done in the body, and disobedience to parents in the Lord brings judgment. Disrespect for parents and rebellion against their counsel brings the curse of God upon the disobedient, and that curse falls also upon any institution that retains them and gives them further opportunity to pervert other youth. Those in responsible positions become partakers of the sin if indifferent to the course of the insubordinate and impenitent, and must guard the interests of the cause like sleepless sentinels against spiritual contamination.
Dishonor sinks character in rectitude and moral value, builds a terrible account to God, and forfeits peace, happiness, and elevation, while neglect, indifference, heartlessness, selfishness, and unkindness are kept as crime in heaven's books, grieve heaven, and leave bitter remorse like a millstone and regret-filled days. Those who dishonor parents should not expect God's blessing, and disobeying parents and neglecting the simple duties expected of them brings confusion into the home. Widespread disobedience and disrespect of children toward parents and age in the last days is specially noticed by God as a sign that the end is near, showing Satan has almost complete control of the minds of the young.
This dishonor marks a rebellious, indulged age in which children without right instruction and discipline have little sense of obligation, grow more ungrateful the more is done for them, expect to be petted and waited upon, resent it when others do not yield to them, and carry helpless, exacting dependence into manhood and womanhood. Faithful honor is not loss but brings a rich and glorious reward seen by God, and faithful, cheerful duty and care for a father even through hardship will be rewarded. Such faithfulness saves from many evils, gives esteem and influence for good as evidence of sterling worth, and a well-disciplined, well-ordered family exerts a more powerful influence for Christianity than sermons, while a young person's influence should lead others to keep the command.