How To Honor Parents That Are Less Than Honorable

The Bible commands us to honor our father and mother, but what if they are anything but honorable?

The Fifth Commandment

When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, the first four deal with our relationship with God, while the final six deal with our relationships with our fellow man and woman, but it seems interesting that God would place the command to honor our father and mother as the first order of importance. Why not put murder or adultery as the fifth? Why is honoring your parents placed first among the six horizontal commandments? Why not make “You shall not murder” the Fifth Commandment (Ex 20:13)? Exodus 20:12 says, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” If we think in earthly terms, if human parents don’t teach their children to avoid harmful things, then they could get hurt, so telling them to abstain from certain activities, although it seems restrictive, is intended to save their life. It will go well with them…and their “days may be long,” or at least, longer “in the land” of the living. It’s a commandment that comes with a conditional promise that if they obey and honor their parents, it will go well with them, and they will live a longer life in the land. Think of it this way; when children are taught from an early age to obey God, and that includes honoring their parents, then there should be fewer murders and fewer thefts, adulteries, and stealing. That might not live a longer life living that way, so when a child doesn’t honor their parents, then they lose the promise of God that “your days may be long in the land.” In fact, their days may turn out to be less than if they had obeyed and honored their parents. As a child, you honor your parents by obeying your parents. This may explain why God places such a high value on honoring parents. If children honored their parents, then the parents would be honoring their children by treating them with the dignity and respect that human beings deserve. And this command does not expire at adulthood, so this is for adults too because they also have parents. It never says we must honor them only till adulthood or until such a time.

Dishonoring Parents

Jesus gave some of His sternest rebukes to the Pharisees because they had neglected to provide for their own parents, thereby breaking the 5th Commandment. By (falsely) claiming they had set aside money for the temple offering (Corban), they gave themselves an excuse for not providing financial support for their parents, however Jesus knew that was only an excuse so they could neglect their parents and feel like they did God a favor. Jesus “said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do” (Mark 7:9-13). By this comment, Jesus shows us that honoring our parents doesn’t expire when we reach adulthood. It extends beyond the grave; that is how we talk about our parents after they’re gone is still either honoring them or being dishonorable. The Apostle Paul understood this responsibility when he wrote to Timothy that, “if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God” (1st Tim 5:4). What the Pharisees were doing was not pleasing God, but this neglect is still happening today. The Activity Director told me that those we visit in nursing homes rarely have family visits. Of those we spoke with, only 4 in 10 had occasional family visits, but the other 60% had no visitors at all…ever! Talk about an open door for a ministry (Matt 25:37-40; James 1:27)! That’s why we went, and heartbreakingly, for most of these people, there were no Christmas cards, no birthday cards, no phone calls…and no visits. Some of these people feel abandoned and unloved, and they are! How many are not honoring their parents by pleading “Corban” but that being “they’re too busy?”

Dishonorable Parents

It’s hard to honor someone who doesn’t deserve honor. I also know it’s difficult to love those who are hard to love, even though Jesus loved us while we were still enemies of God (Rom 5:10), but how are we to obey the 5th commandment to honor our father and our mother (Ex 20:12) when they don’t deserve it? In the first place, there are no perfect parents anywhere, just as there are no perfect children. Some parents have done some heinous things to their children, and the damage has lasted a lifetime, so it may not be possible without God’s help. One way we can honor our less-than-honorable parents is to tell about those redeeming qualities they had. There is always something positive we can think of about someone. There is no blessing in speaking negatively about them; especially after they are deceased. Think about our relationship before salvation. We were ungodly, wicked sinners who were enemies of God (Rom 5:6-10), but “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8), and “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom 5:10a). Can we not forgive others since we have been forgiven so much? Have we considered our own parent’s upbringing and how much they might have been a product of their own dysfunctional family?

Conclusion

I have never met a perfect parent and I guess you haven’t either. I’m certainly not. Only God the Father is the Perfect Parent, so let’s give our parents a break, because they probably did the best they knew how, and their own childhood could have been filled with horrible experiences that they’ve never even told you about. They might have had it worse than you! Let’s remember that we “had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live” (Heb 12:9), for they did “as it seemed best to them, but [God] disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Heb 12:10).   Have the funeral. Bury the past. God forgives, and even though we can’t forget…we can choose to forgive.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.