One of the significant questions that came to the front and was left unanswered this past Lord’s Day was how we ought to honour our parents. For those children who come under the authority of their Father and Mother, their primary way of doing so is by submitting to their authority and obeying them as a means of obeying Jesus (Col. 3:20; Eph 6:1-4). Although, the command to honour your parents does not have an end date even for those who are no longer required to obey them (Exo. 20:12 ; Matt. 19:19). So, how ought we to carry on Honouring them?
What we must first do is define what honour means. Very simply, it refers to the value and price you put on someone or something. It pertains to how weighty you perceive something or someone to be. So, as Paul was commanding the children to obey and honour (Eph 6:1-4), he was calling them to obey in response to the weighty value they place on their parents. To honour then is to place the weighty value upon one’s parents based on what God has bestowed, the authority they have been given by the Lord.
With this in mind, and the power of God’s words ringing in our ears, we must all then wrestle with the implications of placing this value upon our parents. Let me lead you in considering a few implications by way of proposing a few questions:
- How do you speak of your parents to others? How do you think of your parents?
- How are you protecting and/or upholding your parents legacy?
- How do you bless your parents? Are you the child who rises up to call their mother ‘blessed’? Do you live with thankfulness towards your parents for what they have done and sacrificed?
- How do you honour your parents by seeking their wisdom where appropriate?
- How do you care for your parents? Do you seek to maintain relationship, pursue unity, and care for them practically (especially as they age)? Are you willing to sacrifice to be by their death bed?
- How are you showing grace to your parents? Seeking to forgive when they have wronged, and stand in the gap for them?
I trust these questions are at the least thought provoking, and cause you to think how they might be applied in your situation. Although they do have a glaring gap – because these seem challenging (but not impossible) to those of us who have grown up in a godly home – but what does this mean for those of us who have not had this blessing? What does it mean to honour your parents who have lived in dishonorable ways, or abused their parental authority. What does it mean to honour the very people whom you struggle to find anything honourable in?
Though I cannot speak to every situation, let me make a couple of comments to conclude.
Firstly, if your parents do not obey and love God, then honouring them must start with being eager to forgive, praying diligently for their salvation and preaching the gospel unashamedly.
Secondly, we are obedient to scripture if we choose to Honour the position, even when we cannot honour the person. If honouring the person through relationship is unwise for whatever reason then we work to honour the position given by God. Sometimes ‘we salute the rank, not the man,’ (Band of Brothers, 2001). This means to have respect for fathers and mothers in the general sense. This means to respect that God has created the position and esteemed your parents to that position. Honour it by speaking well of the parental office and fulfilling your role in it if the time comes for you to do so. Finally, Honour does not mean enabling or agreement. As you work through your obedience to this you must realise that honouring does not condone their behaviour. You can love them and speak well of them while still calling out sin. This may mean that if abuse has taken place that the appropriate people be alerted. If that is or has been the case for you, then we would love to support you practically and prayerfully as elders.
At the end of the day, we honour the Lord above all. We rest in his grace – for he has given fools like us the hope of glory – and we seek to honour our parents well by the power of Christ working within our hearts. Causing us to respond, if necessary, with the opposite spirit. Just like our saviour who ‘When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.’ Trust the Lord who is over all, for Jesus ‘himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.’ 1 Peter 2:23–25
Grace to you, Glory to God