How long must I honor my parents?

Before I begin, let me state the obvious, I am well aware this is now the month of February and not that of May or June when we typically contemplate our parents. But as January was a month of beginnings, even so is February a month of love.

Where it involves human relations, biblically speaking, love begins in the home with our parents.

In the book of Exodus we find the fifth commandment teaching “honor thy father and thy mother.” In the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul calls this “the first commandment with promise,” that is, the first with a promise attached to it. But even though it is the fifth as far as ordering in the Ten Commandments, it is also the first commandment of those that deal with loving our neighbors. By this God wants us to understand who our chief neighbors really are.

Think about it: Who brought you into this world? And who was it that you first learned to love? Upon whom were you first dependent? Was it not your parents? God, then, wants us to have a special love and loyalty toward those whose very existence is the reason we are here.

The truth is that God did not give us this commandment because we needed to be told to love our parents. No, babies do this naturally. But God knew that the time would come in each of our lives when we would be tempted not to, and that we would justify the temptation on the grounds that we were adults and could run our own lives. God has built into the human spirit the yearning to be free, and as the body grows so does this spirit of independence. But as you grow, and as God looks on with pleasure at your growing abilities, he would remind you, “Don’t forget where you came from.”

In this commandment we see an intimate connection between love and honor. If you love your parents, you will honor them; if you do not, you will not. It is that simple. To sit in judgment over your parents for their lack of perfection is to declare your own hypocrisy — you are no more perfect than they.

This, then, is our answer: We honor our parents as long as we love them, and that until the day that we die.

But the question of how long we are to honor our parents is never really the true question, is it? Hidden underneath all the veneer, the question that is always on a young person’s mind is, “How long must I obey my parents?”

There is an intrinsic connection between the words “honor” and “obey” in the minds of every young person, and this is brought out by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6 where he says, “obey your parents” in verse 1 and “honor thy father and mother” in verse 2. He connects them to the dismay of every teen-ager around.

What needs to be born in mind at this point is that the function of parenting is the eventual releasing of offspring to be on their own.

Arguably, this is at least part of what Paul is referring to in verse 4 where he speaks about not provoking children to wrath; there comes a time when children must be allowed to assume adult responsibilities. But even here we see the idea of longevity in honor.

One reason children want to know how long they have to obey their parents is because rebellion is in their hearts and they just cannot wait to be out on their own; and — just like the prodigal son of Luke 15 — do all the things their parents would never let them do. This is a wrong attitude. Here, you should continue on in your upbringing without being forced. This is the idea of continuing the heritage of your ancestors, not being a traitor to the cause.

Young person, the greatest compliment that you can ever pay your Christian parents is to retain their values. This is honor.

Forget about all your hypothetical objections.

If it is true that you cannot love God and hate your brother, and it is, what makes you think you can honor a heavenly Father and dishonor earthly parents? The truth is, you cannot.

Ron Hamman is pastor of Independent Baptist Church of Wasilla. Contact him at 357-4229 or ron.hamman@gci.net.

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