That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
Honoring father and mother carries the promise that it will go well with the child and the child will live long on the earth, on the land God gives. This repeats the fifth commandment spoken from Sinai as the first commandment with promise, indeed the only commandment to which a promise is annexed. The promise is prospering and enjoying long life in this world, while it is also taught as life on the purified earth made new. Honoring means obeying parents in the Lord with cheerful, willing subjection, and loving, respecting and revering them with affection, gratitude and care for their happiness, a duty binding as long as parents and children both live, including tender care in old age and sickness. Obedience to parents is the training and test for obedience to God, and like all God's promises this promise is given only on condition of humble obedience, so the disobedient and ungrateful forfeit part in the earth made new, while parents must teach it and raise children in the Lord's nurture and admonition.
Promise and Commandment Setting
The promise joined to honoring father and mother is that it may be well with the child and the child may live long on the earth. Honoring and obeying parents brings well-being and long life, with things going well for children who honor them. Parents are responsible to teach children what this promise means and to raise them in the Lord's nurture and admonition, with godly discipline according with God's purpose and guidance to honor God and submit to His will and the Spirit's guidance. That obedience to parents stands within obedience to God's requirements, beginning in the sanctuary of the home as training in submission and surrender to Christ under Prince Emmanuel to make children wise unto salvation, and children need correct instruction from earliest years because their course bears on eternal interests. This duty to respect parents' person and authority and to care for them when able and given opportunity is taught by parents' example as well as by instruction, yet obedience to parents does not extend to commands contradicting Christ's requirements, for in that conflict the child must obey the Lord.
The verse repeats the fifth commandment spoken from Sinai. Honoring father and mother is the first commandment with promise, indeed the only commandment to which a promise is annexed. That promise is precious to all who obey God's commandments, linking honoring parents with well-being and length of life on the earth, and it is not to be treated lightly. Honoring in this sense means obeying parents in the Lord because it is right, respecting them in everything where it can be done conscientiously in every right command, while God as heavenly Father, Creator, Redeemer and Owner holds the first claim so that when obedience to parents would mean transgression of God's law the child must obey God, remain firm as a rock to principle, and still not hate parents.
The promise is stated as prospering and enjoying long life in this world, on the land God gives. It means life on the new earth, the purified earth made new. Like all God's promises it is given only on condition of humble obedience, belonging to children who obey parents in the Lord with obedience and submission learned here. Children who dishonor or neglect parents should not expect God's blessing to attend them.
The verse belongs to instruction that sets obedience and the good works God ordained within salvation by grace through faith in Christ, by which those dead in trespasses and sins are quickened together with Christ and raised to sit in heavenly places. It calls them to put on the whole armor of God to stand against the wiles of the devil, principalities, powers and spiritual wickedness in the evil day, so that the cross of Calvary as the great center becomes effectual to bring reconciliation for iniquity, everlasting righteousness and everlasting deliverance to all who walk after Christ separated from the world and endure to the end holding confidence firm. It belongs also to the duty and doctrine taught in the Word for parents and children, masters and servants, employers and employed, to be learned under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As part of the message of truth to be brought to the people by Christ's ambassadors, it calls for whole-heart consecration to God for Him to mold and fashion life after the divine likeness in the time when the great work will be cut short in righteousness.
What Honor Requires
Honoring father and mother means obeying parents in the Lord because it is right, heeding their advice, instruction, counsel and restraint with obedience and submission learned in this life. That obedience is to be cheerful and willing, not forced or sullen, for without yielding such willing obedience to parents children cannot yield willing obedience to God. While under their roof and dependent on them, children are to remain in subjection with fear and reverence, following out their parents' views of right and respecting them in everything that can be done conscientiously in every right command.
Honoring also means loving, respecting and revering parents, sensing obligation and gratitude for what they do rather than growing more ungrateful the more they do. Christian children prize the love and approval of God-fearing parents above every earthly blessing and manifest affection in words and acts. Making their parents' happiness is to be one of the principal studies and a principal concern of life.
Honoring means being governable at home, staying familiar with parents and receiving their counsel and restraint, which brings well-being and long life, while disrespect, ungovernableness and despising counsel forfeit the promise. Godly parents best see dangers, understand peculiar temperaments, know what traits of character to check and restrain, and have watched every turn of the mind from infancy, so receiving their counsel saves children from many evils. From the earliest years honoring means carrying a share of home burdens, learning that obligations are mutual, learning to work quickly and neatly, and faithfully doing humble daily duties with respect, courtesy and right habits, which is elevating and makes it easier to learn from God and obey His requirements.
When parents are absent, a guardian or those the young person lives with are to be regarded as counselors, comforters and in some respects rulers, and the restraints of the home accepted. Obedience to parents does not extend to commands that contradict Christ and transgress God's law, for God as heavenly Father, Creator, Redeemer and Owner has the first claim. In that conflict the child must obey God and obey the Lord, remain firm as a rock to principle, show kindness while not acting against God's will and way, and still not hate parents, honoring them only when their requirements agree with God's will. Speaking to parents with unrestrained, profane, passionate abuse dishonors them and openly breaks the commandment, and when a child curses parents it curses God, sinking lower and lower in rectitude and moral value and running up a terrible account to render. Curbing the unruly tongue and stopping rebellion brings happiness, peace, and elevation and ennobling of character to those who honor father and mother by respecting and obeying them.
Lifelong Honor in Practice
The duty to honor father and mother does not end when childhood ends but stays binding as long as parents and children both live. Even grown and married children must respect their parents, look after their comfort, and listen to the counsel of godly parents, instead of thinking that added years free them from obligation. That listening holds unless obeying parents would conflict with duty to God. The continuing obligation of children matches the continuing duty and care of parents toward their children, which likewise lasts as long as both shall live. A child's duty to a parent is sacred, so a son who chooses to act independently of his father's wishes cannot expect to rely on him for food, clothing, or schooling, and to support him in school after he ceases to be faithful and obedient would harm his future.
Honoring includes respecting the person and authority of parents and caring for them when able and given opportunity, especially when they cannot care for themselves in old age and sickness. This care is to be done as cheerful duty, with the assurance that God sees such devotion and will reward it. Providing a home is not enough without love, tenderness, sympathy, practical help, cheerfulness and sunshine, smoothing their pathway to the grave, supplying their needs, and seeking to make their last days their best days. That obligation is never measured by years and applies whether father or mother is a believer or an unbeliever, agreeable or disagreeable, and includes not lightly disregarding their wishes and helping them when they need it. Unfaithfulness to aged parents brings bitter remorse, regret weighing like a millstone, and unhappy reflections in old age when children better appreciate what they should have done.
Honoring governs courtship and marriage, for one who leads another away from duty to parents acts contrary to God's command and is unfaithful to the obligations of marriage. Before a marriage contract one must look carefully at how leaving home would affect parents' happiness, weigh who has the strongest claims, consider their feebleness and need for help, and refuse to let a lover's claim lightly set aside or ignore their counsel and wishes. A minor is to be guided by her father and is not to decide marriage without parental knowledge and approval, since acting against their counsel dishonors him. Respect for a mother and attention to her wishes and happiness, with faithfulness, respect and regard that bring esteem and influence, is a sign of character that warns how a man will treat a wife. To slight a mother's love, to dishonor a father's care, and to disregard parents' mature judgment breaks the commandment and is a sin registered against many youth.
The command condemns secretive conduct that disregards parents' responsibility to guide and guard their children. Choosing disobedient companions and despising a father's counsel is contrary to that duty, and a child who is supported by a father should not refuse to help him carry family burdens. The promise is violated when religious teaching leads children to abandon their parents and disregard their commands, leaving parents deprived of their children's company.
Parents' Training Responsibility
Parents are responsible for teaching children what the promise of well-being and long life on the earth means, and for raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord with godly discipline that accords with God's purpose. That training guides them to honor God and to submit to His will and to the guidance of His Spirit. Obedience beginning in the sanctuary of the home is training in submission and surrender to Christ under Prince Emmanuel, which makes children wise unto salvation.
Teaching that obedience is the special work of fathers and mothers. It is to be done with kindness, affection, patience, fairness, firmness and love rather than harshness or anger, holding the lines and governing rather than being governed by the children. Parents are to guide by higher principles than the children's wishes. Disrespect must never be allowed, and self-will and hasty words must not go unrebuked.
Parents must not provoke or discourage children to wrath, but correct wrongdoing with patience, fairness, firmness and love. They are to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, which is God's marked-out plan for home education. That plan trains children to overcome all indolence, teaches each child that he has a work to do in the world, and makes the home the place where fitness is gained to wrestle with the problems of life, with mothers entrusted especially with training children for usefulness.
Parents and children are alike subjects of the heavenly Father and alike to be ruled by God, giving no license for filial disobedience and none for parental severity or oppression, for the law that governs home life as well as the government of nations flows from a heart of infinite love. Parents must not drive, intimidate or provoke with overbearing, stern, faultfinding, threatening words that create slavish fear, destroy confidence, and lead to deception and evasion. They must treat the younger members of the Lord's house with tenderness, forbearance, gentleness and respect because they are the Lord's property by creation and by redemption, bind them to the heart, bring love rather than fear into the home, and open the Bible before them to impress a Thus saith the Lord upon their hearts, for only such wise, tender, God-fearing training secures obedience from love and brings God's blessing on the home.
The home is decreed to be the greatest of all educational agencies, where honor and obedience are taught from infancy and the lessons that guide through life are learned. Parents and children must become acquainted with one another and together learn their duty to God and to one another. Mothers are to refuse church burdens that compel neglect of children and to make training their dependent children their best church work with no dropped stitches, because a well-disciplined, well-ordered family exerts a more powerful influence for Christianity than all sermons that can be preached. Cheerful, willing obedience must be enforced from infancy onward, the mother's work beginning with the infant by subduing its will and temper and bringing its disposition into subjection, with the hand of discipline not relaxed as the child grows older. Christian parents fit their children to become children of God by reasoning, correcting errors, and patiently teaching the right way, restraining dissatisfied, impatient desires for self-will, including keeping children from ages ten to eighteen back from picnics and other exciting gatherings of young associates when experienced parents see danger to temperament and salvation, because the whole religious experience and character depends on it and a will unsubdued in childhood yields later to the requirements of God only through severe struggle.
Even when children leave the pleasures of the world and choose to be Christ's disciples, parents must not cease laboring but must keep watching, counseling and deciding for them, because they have only just commenced earnest warfare against sin, pride, passion, envy, jealousy, hatred and all the evils of the natural heart and cannot yet be left always to choose for themselves. When children are allowed to continue disrespectful, disobedient, unthankful and peevish in the home, their sins lie at the door of the parents. When parents neglect to govern according to right principles the enemy is given opportunity to gain control, and children allowed to disregard parental authority are never happy, losing the well-being promised to obedience. The early years are the time to prepare to become members of the royal family, with prayer and praise for the privilege of becoming children of God and citizens of His kingdom.
Parents help children keep the commandment through patient, loving firmness and by modeling obedience to God, and honoring God's law in family life promotes the happiness and peace of parents and children. Children are to respect and revere parents, and parents are to treat children with patience, kindness and affection. Family members are also to show one another chaste, dignified affection, kindness and love. The commandment with its promise of well-being and long life is an injunction to be directly taught, as John should teach Homer to obey it.
Training for Obedience to God
Obedience to parents is the training and test for obedience to God, for cheerful, willing obedience is owed to parents and without yielding it children cannot yield willing obedience to God and cannot be Christians. Even when children leave the pleasures of the world to become Christ's disciples, watching, counseling and deciding for them must not cease, because they have only just begun earnest warfare against sin, pride, passion, envy, jealousy, hatred and all the evils of the natural heart and cannot yet be left to take their own course and always choose for themselves. That cheerful, willing obedience must be enforced from infancy onward, beginning with subduing the infant's will and temper and bringing the disposition into subjection, and the hand of discipline must not be relaxed as the child grows. Fitting children to become children of God is done by reasoning, correcting errors and patiently teaching the right way, because the whole religious experience and character formed in childhood depends on it, and if the will is not subdued in childhood to the will of the parents, yielding it later to the requirements of God becomes a severe struggle and conflict. Strict discipline restrains dissatisfied, impatient desires for self-will, including keeping children from ages ten to eighteen back from picnics and other exciting gatherings of young associates when experienced parents see danger to their temperaments and to their salvation.
Obedience learned under parental discipline prepares children to submit to God's requirements, and this childhood training shapes religious experience and character, with well-being and long life on earth attached to obedience. Early training in obedience teaches children to submit to God's authority and can keep them from vice and dissipation. Children who learn to yield their wishes to their parents and to practice self-control under parental discipline can more readily yield to God and accept the Spirit's guidance, and their obedience is connected with their well-being and life.
Educating children to submit to parental authority educates them to submit to the authority of God, and teaching that required obedience with kindness and affection, holding the lines and governing rather than being governed by the children, is the special work of fathers and mothers. Allowing children to continue disrespectful, disobedient, unthankful and peevish in the home leaves their sins at the door of the parents. Teaching children to love, respect and obey their parents in the fear of the Lord lays the foundation for leading them to love God. That respect and obedience benefits them not only in this life but also in eternity, because it trains them to reverence and obey God.
Obedience to God includes obedience to parents, to be taught as part of learning what it means to be God's children and to yield the will to God. Parents have a God-given duty to teach obedience, and respect for parents is connected with respect for the heavenly Father. Teaching children to respect their parents also teaches respect for God, along with self-control, kindness, love, gentleness and helping others without selfishness. Neglecting or dishonoring parents violates this duty, and children who disregard their earthly parents should not expect God's blessing and show no proper respect for their heavenly Father.
Obedience to parents stands within obedience to God's requirements, carrying the promise that things may go well for children and they may live long on the earth, so children need correct instruction from their earliest years because their course in life bears on their eternal interests. Obedience learned at home in God's ordained way of educating leads children to obey their heavenly Father. Forming right habits in the home — respect, courtesy and faithful performance of daily duties — makes it easier for them to learn from God and obey His requirements.
Children are to learn in the home church to pray and to trust in God and to prepare to become members of the family of heaven by being kind and dutiful to their parents and faithfully respecting their wishes. That kind, dutiful conduct and respect for their wishes is part of their preparation for life in heaven. Children are urged to obey their parents, love God and speak truth, with the assurance of God's pleasure, blessing and entry into the holy city if they keep God's commandments and love and obey their parents.
Affectionate respect and honor for parents belongs within God's solemn commands, together with the duty of parents to train their children in obedience, self-denial and reverence for God. Faithful family order of that kind supports the harmony of the church and the prosperity of the nation, while parental neglect of discipline can bring grave consequences.
Conditions, Blessings, Consequences
The promise is given only on condition of humble obedience, like all of God's promises, and it is precious to all who obey God's commandments, with the fifth commandment's promise made conditional on obedience. Disobedience to parents in the Lord brings judgment, and parents and children alike are responsible to follow the Lord and heed all His commandments. Children who dishonor and disobey parents forfeit any part in the earth made new and cannot inherit the kingdom of Heaven. No rebellious, disobedient, ungrateful, unruly, unsubmissive child and no commandment-breaker will be there to mar the peace of the ransomed, for obedience and submission must be learned in this life or never, and young and old will be judged and rewarded according to deeds done in the body.
Children who do not respect and love parents will never reverence the God of heaven and will never be deemed worthy of a place in the new earth, while those who obey the divine precepts are commended to the world and to heaven. Neglect, indifference, heartlessness, selfishness and unkindness to aged parents are a crime recorded in heaven that brings grief to heaven and sorrow upon sorrow to parents. Disrespect for parental authority, ungovernableness at home, and despising counsel and restraint forfeit the promise and bring God's curse instead. That curse rests not only on the disobedient youth but on an institution that retains them and gives further opportunity to pervert the young, with responsible persons indifferent to insubordination partaking in the sin.
Children who dishonor or neglect parents, or disregard their earthly parents, should not expect God's blessing to attend them. Widespread disobedience and disrespect in the last days breaks this commandment, is especially noticed by God, signals the nearness of the end, and shows Satan's almost complete control of the young. The ancient order is reversed by putting parents in subjection to children for fear of crossing their will, and despising age rejects a duty reaching back to Abraham. Parents must instead move with decision, restrain children and require obedience rather than leaving them to pride and inclination.
Dishonor marks a rebellious age without right instruction where petted, waited-upon children expect service and grow disappointed when crossed. They carry the disposition through life as helpless adults leaning on others, expecting favor, feeling abused when opposed even in manhood and womanhood, and worrying through the world murmuring because nothing suits them. The Bible's counsel calls the young to respect, love and cherish parents who guided them through childhood and may now depend on them for peace and happiness. That counsel is given without adding explanation of the promised well-being and long life.
Honoring father and mother carries the promise that it will go well with the child and the child will live long on the earth, on the land God gives.
This repeats the fifth commandment spoken from Sinai as the first commandment with promise, indeed the only commandment to which a promise is annexed.
The promise is prospering and enjoying long life in this world, while it is also taught as life on the purified earth made new.
Honoring means obeying parents in the Lord with cheerful, willing subjection, and loving, respecting and revering them with affection, gratitude and care for their happiness, a duty binding as long as parents and children both live, including tender care in old age and sickness.
Obedience to parents is the training and test for obedience to God, and like all God's promises this promise is given only on condition of humble obedience, so the disobedient and ungrateful forfeit part in the earth made new, while parents must teach it and raise children in the Lord's nurture and admonition.
Promise and Commandment Setting
The promise joined to honoring father and mother is that it may be well with the child and the child may live long on the earth. Honoring and obeying parents brings well-being and long life, with things going well for children who honor them. Parents are responsible to teach children what this promise means and to raise them in the Lord's nurture and admonition, with godly discipline according with God's purpose and guidance to honor God and submit to His will and the Spirit's guidance. That obedience to parents stands within obedience to God's requirements, beginning in the sanctuary of the home as training in submission and surrender to Christ under Prince Emmanuel to make children wise unto salvation, and children need correct instruction from earliest years because their course bears on eternal interests. This duty to respect parents' person and authority and to care for them when able and given opportunity is taught by parents' example as well as by instruction, yet obedience to parents does not extend to commands contradicting Christ's requirements, for in that conflict the child must obey the Lord.
The verse repeats the fifth commandment spoken from Sinai. Honoring father and mother is the first commandment with promise, indeed the only commandment to which a promise is annexed. That promise is precious to all who obey God's commandments, linking honoring parents with well-being and length of life on the earth, and it is not to be treated lightly. Honoring in this sense means obeying parents in the Lord because it is right, respecting them in everything where it can be done conscientiously in every right command, while God as heavenly Father, Creator, Redeemer and Owner holds the first claim so that when obedience to parents would mean transgression of God's law the child must obey God, remain firm as a rock to principle, and still not hate parents.
The promise is stated as prospering and enjoying long life in this world, on the land God gives. It means life on the new earth, the purified earth made new. Like all God's promises it is given only on condition of humble obedience, belonging to children who obey parents in the Lord with obedience and submission learned here. Children who dishonor or neglect parents should not expect God's blessing to attend them.
The verse belongs to instruction that sets obedience and the good works God ordained within salvation by grace through faith in Christ, by which those dead in trespasses and sins are quickened together with Christ and raised to sit in heavenly places. It calls them to put on the whole armor of God to stand against the wiles of the devil, principalities, powers and spiritual wickedness in the evil day, so that the cross of Calvary as the great center becomes effectual to bring reconciliation for iniquity, everlasting righteousness and everlasting deliverance to all who walk after Christ separated from the world and endure to the end holding confidence firm. It belongs also to the duty and doctrine taught in the Word for parents and children, masters and servants, employers and employed, to be learned under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As part of the message of truth to be brought to the people by Christ's ambassadors, it calls for whole-heart consecration to God for Him to mold and fashion life after the divine likeness in the time when the great work will be cut short in righteousness.
What Honor Requires
Honoring father and mother means obeying parents in the Lord because it is right, heeding their advice, instruction, counsel and restraint with obedience and submission learned in this life. That obedience is to be cheerful and willing, not forced or sullen, for without yielding such willing obedience to parents children cannot yield willing obedience to God. While under their roof and dependent on them, children are to remain in subjection with fear and reverence, following out their parents' views of right and respecting them in everything that can be done conscientiously in every right command.
Honoring also means loving, respecting and revering parents, sensing obligation and gratitude for what they do rather than growing more ungrateful the more they do. Christian children prize the love and approval of God-fearing parents above every earthly blessing and manifest affection in words and acts. Making their parents' happiness is to be one of the principal studies and a principal concern of life.
Honoring means being governable at home, staying familiar with parents and receiving their counsel and restraint, which brings well-being and long life, while disrespect, ungovernableness and despising counsel forfeit the promise. Godly parents best see dangers, understand peculiar temperaments, know what traits of character to check and restrain, and have watched every turn of the mind from infancy, so receiving their counsel saves children from many evils. From the earliest years honoring means carrying a share of home burdens, learning that obligations are mutual, learning to work quickly and neatly, and faithfully doing humble daily duties with respect, courtesy and right habits, which is elevating and makes it easier to learn from God and obey His requirements.
When parents are absent, a guardian or those the young person lives with are to be regarded as counselors, comforters and in some respects rulers, and the restraints of the home accepted. Obedience to parents does not extend to commands that contradict Christ and transgress God's law, for God as heavenly Father, Creator, Redeemer and Owner has the first claim. In that conflict the child must obey God and obey the Lord, remain firm as a rock to principle, show kindness while not acting against God's will and way, and still not hate parents, honoring them only when their requirements agree with God's will. Speaking to parents with unrestrained, profane, passionate abuse dishonors them and openly breaks the commandment, and when a child curses parents it curses God, sinking lower and lower in rectitude and moral value and running up a terrible account to render. Curbing the unruly tongue and stopping rebellion brings happiness, peace, and elevation and ennobling of character to those who honor father and mother by respecting and obeying them.
Lifelong Honor in Practice
The duty to honor father and mother does not end when childhood ends but stays binding as long as parents and children both live. Even grown and married children must respect their parents, look after their comfort, and listen to the counsel of godly parents, instead of thinking that added years free them from obligation. That listening holds unless obeying parents would conflict with duty to God. The continuing obligation of children matches the continuing duty and care of parents toward their children, which likewise lasts as long as both shall live. A child's duty to a parent is sacred, so a son who chooses to act independently of his father's wishes cannot expect to rely on him for food, clothing, or schooling, and to support him in school after he ceases to be faithful and obedient would harm his future.
Honoring includes respecting the person and authority of parents and caring for them when able and given opportunity, especially when they cannot care for themselves in old age and sickness. This care is to be done as cheerful duty, with the assurance that God sees such devotion and will reward it. Providing a home is not enough without love, tenderness, sympathy, practical help, cheerfulness and sunshine, smoothing their pathway to the grave, supplying their needs, and seeking to make their last days their best days. That obligation is never measured by years and applies whether father or mother is a believer or an unbeliever, agreeable or disagreeable, and includes not lightly disregarding their wishes and helping them when they need it. Unfaithfulness to aged parents brings bitter remorse, regret weighing like a millstone, and unhappy reflections in old age when children better appreciate what they should have done.
Honoring governs courtship and marriage, for one who leads another away from duty to parents acts contrary to God's command and is unfaithful to the obligations of marriage. Before a marriage contract one must look carefully at how leaving home would affect parents' happiness, weigh who has the strongest claims, consider their feebleness and need for help, and refuse to let a lover's claim lightly set aside or ignore their counsel and wishes. A minor is to be guided by her father and is not to decide marriage without parental knowledge and approval, since acting against their counsel dishonors him. Respect for a mother and attention to her wishes and happiness, with faithfulness, respect and regard that bring esteem and influence, is a sign of character that warns how a man will treat a wife. To slight a mother's love, to dishonor a father's care, and to disregard parents' mature judgment breaks the commandment and is a sin registered against many youth.
The command condemns secretive conduct that disregards parents' responsibility to guide and guard their children. Choosing disobedient companions and despising a father's counsel is contrary to that duty, and a child who is supported by a father should not refuse to help him carry family burdens. The promise is violated when religious teaching leads children to abandon their parents and disregard their commands, leaving parents deprived of their children's company.
Parents' Training Responsibility
Parents are responsible for teaching children what the promise of well-being and long life on the earth means, and for raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord with godly discipline that accords with God's purpose. That training guides them to honor God and to submit to His will and to the guidance of His Spirit. Obedience beginning in the sanctuary of the home is training in submission and surrender to Christ under Prince Emmanuel, which makes children wise unto salvation.
Teaching that obedience is the special work of fathers and mothers. It is to be done with kindness, affection, patience, fairness, firmness and love rather than harshness or anger, holding the lines and governing rather than being governed by the children. Parents are to guide by higher principles than the children's wishes. Disrespect must never be allowed, and self-will and hasty words must not go unrebuked.
Parents must not provoke or discourage children to wrath, but correct wrongdoing with patience, fairness, firmness and love. They are to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, which is God's marked-out plan for home education. That plan trains children to overcome all indolence, teaches each child that he has a work to do in the world, and makes the home the place where fitness is gained to wrestle with the problems of life, with mothers entrusted especially with training children for usefulness.
Parents and children are alike subjects of the heavenly Father and alike to be ruled by God, giving no license for filial disobedience and none for parental severity or oppression, for the law that governs home life as well as the government of nations flows from a heart of infinite love. Parents must not drive, intimidate or provoke with overbearing, stern, faultfinding, threatening words that create slavish fear, destroy confidence, and lead to deception and evasion. They must treat the younger members of the Lord's house with tenderness, forbearance, gentleness and respect because they are the Lord's property by creation and by redemption, bind them to the heart, bring love rather than fear into the home, and open the Bible before them to impress a Thus saith the Lord upon their hearts, for only such wise, tender, God-fearing training secures obedience from love and brings God's blessing on the home.
The home is decreed to be the greatest of all educational agencies, where honor and obedience are taught from infancy and the lessons that guide through life are learned. Parents and children must become acquainted with one another and together learn their duty to God and to one another. Mothers are to refuse church burdens that compel neglect of children and to make training their dependent children their best church work with no dropped stitches, because a well-disciplined, well-ordered family exerts a more powerful influence for Christianity than all sermons that can be preached. Cheerful, willing obedience must be enforced from infancy onward, the mother's work beginning with the infant by subduing its will and temper and bringing its disposition into subjection, with the hand of discipline not relaxed as the child grows older. Christian parents fit their children to become children of God by reasoning, correcting errors, and patiently teaching the right way, restraining dissatisfied, impatient desires for self-will, including keeping children from ages ten to eighteen back from picnics and other exciting gatherings of young associates when experienced parents see danger to temperament and salvation, because the whole religious experience and character depends on it and a will unsubdued in childhood yields later to the requirements of God only through severe struggle.
Even when children leave the pleasures of the world and choose to be Christ's disciples, parents must not cease laboring but must keep watching, counseling and deciding for them, because they have only just commenced earnest warfare against sin, pride, passion, envy, jealousy, hatred and all the evils of the natural heart and cannot yet be left always to choose for themselves. When children are allowed to continue disrespectful, disobedient, unthankful and peevish in the home, their sins lie at the door of the parents. When parents neglect to govern according to right principles the enemy is given opportunity to gain control, and children allowed to disregard parental authority are never happy, losing the well-being promised to obedience. The early years are the time to prepare to become members of the royal family, with prayer and praise for the privilege of becoming children of God and citizens of His kingdom.
Parents help children keep the commandment through patient, loving firmness and by modeling obedience to God, and honoring God's law in family life promotes the happiness and peace of parents and children. Children are to respect and revere parents, and parents are to treat children with patience, kindness and affection. Family members are also to show one another chaste, dignified affection, kindness and love. The commandment with its promise of well-being and long life is an injunction to be directly taught, as John should teach Homer to obey it.
Training for Obedience to God
Obedience to parents is the training and test for obedience to God, for cheerful, willing obedience is owed to parents and without yielding it children cannot yield willing obedience to God and cannot be Christians. Even when children leave the pleasures of the world to become Christ's disciples, watching, counseling and deciding for them must not cease, because they have only just begun earnest warfare against sin, pride, passion, envy, jealousy, hatred and all the evils of the natural heart and cannot yet be left to take their own course and always choose for themselves. That cheerful, willing obedience must be enforced from infancy onward, beginning with subduing the infant's will and temper and bringing the disposition into subjection, and the hand of discipline must not be relaxed as the child grows. Fitting children to become children of God is done by reasoning, correcting errors and patiently teaching the right way, because the whole religious experience and character formed in childhood depends on it, and if the will is not subdued in childhood to the will of the parents, yielding it later to the requirements of God becomes a severe struggle and conflict. Strict discipline restrains dissatisfied, impatient desires for self-will, including keeping children from ages ten to eighteen back from picnics and other exciting gatherings of young associates when experienced parents see danger to their temperaments and to their salvation.
Obedience learned under parental discipline prepares children to submit to God's requirements, and this childhood training shapes religious experience and character, with well-being and long life on earth attached to obedience. Early training in obedience teaches children to submit to God's authority and can keep them from vice and dissipation. Children who learn to yield their wishes to their parents and to practice self-control under parental discipline can more readily yield to God and accept the Spirit's guidance, and their obedience is connected with their well-being and life.
Educating children to submit to parental authority educates them to submit to the authority of God, and teaching that required obedience with kindness and affection, holding the lines and governing rather than being governed by the children, is the special work of fathers and mothers. Allowing children to continue disrespectful, disobedient, unthankful and peevish in the home leaves their sins at the door of the parents. Teaching children to love, respect and obey their parents in the fear of the Lord lays the foundation for leading them to love God. That respect and obedience benefits them not only in this life but also in eternity, because it trains them to reverence and obey God.
Obedience to God includes obedience to parents, to be taught as part of learning what it means to be God's children and to yield the will to God. Parents have a God-given duty to teach obedience, and respect for parents is connected with respect for the heavenly Father. Teaching children to respect their parents also teaches respect for God, along with self-control, kindness, love, gentleness and helping others without selfishness. Neglecting or dishonoring parents violates this duty, and children who disregard their earthly parents should not expect God's blessing and show no proper respect for their heavenly Father.
Obedience to parents stands within obedience to God's requirements, carrying the promise that things may go well for children and they may live long on the earth, so children need correct instruction from their earliest years because their course in life bears on their eternal interests. Obedience learned at home in God's ordained way of educating leads children to obey their heavenly Father. Forming right habits in the home — respect, courtesy and faithful performance of daily duties — makes it easier for them to learn from God and obey His requirements.
Children are to learn in the home church to pray and to trust in God and to prepare to become members of the family of heaven by being kind and dutiful to their parents and faithfully respecting their wishes. That kind, dutiful conduct and respect for their wishes is part of their preparation for life in heaven. Children are urged to obey their parents, love God and speak truth, with the assurance of God's pleasure, blessing and entry into the holy city if they keep God's commandments and love and obey their parents.
Affectionate respect and honor for parents belongs within God's solemn commands, together with the duty of parents to train their children in obedience, self-denial and reverence for God. Faithful family order of that kind supports the harmony of the church and the prosperity of the nation, while parental neglect of discipline can bring grave consequences.
Conditions, Blessings, Consequences
The promise is given only on condition of humble obedience, like all of God's promises, and it is precious to all who obey God's commandments, with the fifth commandment's promise made conditional on obedience. Disobedience to parents in the Lord brings judgment, and parents and children alike are responsible to follow the Lord and heed all His commandments. Children who dishonor and disobey parents forfeit any part in the earth made new and cannot inherit the kingdom of Heaven. No rebellious, disobedient, ungrateful, unruly, unsubmissive child and no commandment-breaker will be there to mar the peace of the ransomed, for obedience and submission must be learned in this life or never, and young and old will be judged and rewarded according to deeds done in the body.
Children who do not respect and love parents will never reverence the God of heaven and will never be deemed worthy of a place in the new earth, while those who obey the divine precepts are commended to the world and to heaven. Neglect, indifference, heartlessness, selfishness and unkindness to aged parents are a crime recorded in heaven that brings grief to heaven and sorrow upon sorrow to parents. Disrespect for parental authority, ungovernableness at home, and despising counsel and restraint forfeit the promise and bring God's curse instead. That curse rests not only on the disobedient youth but on an institution that retains them and gives further opportunity to pervert the young, with responsible persons indifferent to insubordination partaking in the sin.
Children who dishonor or neglect parents, or disregard their earthly parents, should not expect God's blessing to attend them. Widespread disobedience and disrespect in the last days breaks this commandment, is especially noticed by God, signals the nearness of the end, and shows Satan's almost complete control of the young. The ancient order is reversed by putting parents in subjection to children for fear of crossing their will, and despising age rejects a duty reaching back to Abraham. Parents must instead move with decision, restrain children and require obedience rather than leaving them to pride and inclination.
Dishonor marks a rebellious age without right instruction where petted, waited-upon children expect service and grow disappointed when crossed. They carry the disposition through life as helpless adults leaning on others, expecting favor, feeling abused when opposed even in manhood and womanhood, and worrying through the world murmuring because nothing suits them. The Bible's counsel calls the young to respect, love and cherish parents who guided them through childhood and may now depend on them for peace and happiness. That counsel is given without adding explanation of the promised well-being and long life.