Exodus 20:12Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee.

Honor your father and your mother. That’s the fifth commandment. It’s the first one with promise.

Several things may help us crystallize why God says this.

To honor our father and our mother, is to begin with recognition that our very existence is dependent upon them.

Especially here in the US, we live with such a cultural emphasis on the individual that we sometimes forget that we didn’t just spring fully-formed out of somewhere.

We are, at the end of the day, the product of a mother and father. We’re part of an ongoing organism, the human race. Made in the image of God. Moreover, in the majority of instances, our parents were the first ones to nurture us and care for us. We don’t really understand that very well until we become parents.

Then we need to stop and think about all of those years that we don’t remember.

For those of us with Christian parents, not only did they pray for us, usually before we were born, but they prayed for us faithfully, day after day after day when we were entirely thoughtless and careless.

The worst kind of home to be brought up in is the one with many pretensions and low performance. The best kind of home to be brought up in is the one with few pretensions and high performance.

Just recently the White House Conference on the Family changed its name. They changed the name to the White House Conference on the Families because they didn’t want anybody to assume that they thought there was only one kind of family with a male father and a female mother.

Dr. Basil Jackson and I did, he’s a psychiatrist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and he said this to me, he said, “A child will never come to full psychological development and maturation in adulthood unless that child has had a mother in the home.”

“In many weddings `so long as we both shall live’ has been replaced by `so long as we both shall love.’ Many couples feel that the latter statement is more realistic.”

The promise gives us a great clue as to at least one of the reasons why this commandment is so important.

So that you may live long in the land your God is giving you.” That is to say, this commandment is for the ordering of society, for human flourishing.

If you have a situation where parents are not ordered, then the entire culture is coming undone. The entire society is unraveling. Values are not passed on. High orderings of things are simply evaporating. They all have to be relearned again and again and again. What this does is establish intergenerational stability. One of the most frightening things that you can find in this culture is how little honor of our parents there actually is.

Suddenly you wonder, “What is this going to do to the very fabric of culture?” If you want to live long in the land where God places you, you’ve got to have this intergeneration stability.

There are entailments of thinking that the whole universe begins with you.

The commandment does not limit its applicability to good mothers,  fathers.  The text does not say, “Honor your mother so long as she was a good lady. Honor your mother so long as she was a sweetheart.” It actually just says, “Honor your mother.”

That doesn’t mean you honor mother for absolutely everything she says.

Yes, that’s true. Yet in this fallen, twisted, broken world God, for our good, for his own glory has still ordained certain structures. Within those structures, we give honor to whom honor is due, to use Paul’s language. Within that framework, likewise, to our own parents, even if they’ve been right reprobates.

That doesn’t mean that we honor our mother if she was drunk. Nevertheless, you don’t want to get into the spirit of sneering condescension that begins to mock motherhood, or even your own mother, as If she’s not a human being but just trash you can step on.

You honor your father and your mother. This is something that ought to be enforced in the home.

To honor your father and your mother does not presuppose that at every stage of your existence you should obey them.

“For this reason shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife.” There is a new home that is eventually set up. Genesis

He becomes the locus of authority in that new home. It’s not then as if he is supposed to be under his father’s direct command all the days of his life.

There is a way of honoring parents once we have become adults that does not mean simply doing exactly whatever they say whether we think that this is wise or good or godly or not.

What is clear is that where this commandment to honor our parents is breaking down in extravagant ways, not only is God being defied since he gave the commandment, but the stability of the entire culture is breaking up. Hence the words of Micah 7. “Do not trust a neighbor.” So bad was the social relationship at the time.

“Put no confidence in a friend. For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies are the members of his own household.” That’s the net result of having the family unit break up, until it becomes an endless game of one-upmanship.

2 Timothy 3? He says, “People will be disobedient to their parents.” Honor your father and your mother. That brings me to the second thing the Bible emphasizes.

Hate your father and mother. That’s a direct quote. Luke 14:26–27. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.

Jesus himself elsewhere insists in the strongest terms that children must obey their parents and adults must honor their parents.

In fact, he rebukes the Pharisees in their day for playing fast and loose with the tax laws. Did you know they declared something was korban, something was actually dedicated to the temple, then money that should’ve gone to the support of their parents was funneled off and used for religious purposes that promoted their own reputations. Maybe they could even keep some on the side, but it didn’t go to their moms and dads.

What Jesus says is, “That’s wrong! It’s wicked! It’s selfishness because the Bible commands you, ‘Honor your parents. Honor your father and mother.’ By your tradition, you’re nullifying the Word of God.” So Jesus is as strong as anyone on this business. Yet he dares to say this. The language is striking. In one sense, it’s already tied back to Exodus 20.