Night Three Recap

We opened Sunday night’s discussion by looking at what it means to “honor” your mother and father (as it says in Exodus 20) and what it means to “obey” your parents (as Paul says in Ephesians 6). It comes down to a heart attitude. A child can be obedient, but have a bad attitude while doing so and not be honoring towards his parents. We know from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 that Jesus was just as concerned with our heart attitude than just being obedient to a commandment.

Why is the commandment to honor our father and mother so important for us? The fifth commandment is a hinge between “Love the Lord your God” and “Love your neighbor,” connecting the two sections of the Ten Commandments. Dr. Brown reminds us that it is our mother and father who first teach us in the home how to love God and how to love others. So this commandment doesn’t just tell the Israelites (and us) to honor their parents, it also lays out the very important responsibility for parents to teach their children to love God and love others. And when Moses repeats the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy, he follows it with a command to the people in chapter six to keep these words in their heart and repeat them to their children, not just once or every now and then, but at every opportunity.

Parents instruct and model for their children how to follow these commandments in everything they do; from the most mundane tasks to the most important, children learn how to love God and love others. This is a picture of honor and obedience that was established in the Garden with Adam and it continues into the New Testament both with the relationship between Jesus Christ and God the Father, but also how we interact as a family of believers.

We have Paul’s words in Ephesians as he speaks to the cycle of love and honor in specific relationships, parents and children being one of those. So the responsibility of parents and the responsibility of children is still affirmed. But we also have reminders in the New Testament about our spiritual family as well. In Mark 10, Jesus says that those who have left everything for the sake of the gospel “receive a hundred times more, now at this time – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children”. In Titus 2, the members of the spiritual family are given responsibilities in loving and honoring one another as well. The church family is to be made up of older men and women fulfilling their responsibility to minister to the younger men and women, and the younger men and women are to honor the older men and women.

In this way the fifth commandment can speak to the unity of the church. I’m reminded of something Dr. Brown said in one of his first sermons in 1 Thessalonians. When we come together as a church family on Sundays, we have the ability to supply what another is lacking in their faith. It can look like an older man praying with a young father for his wayward son. Or a high school student learning how to honor her unbelieving parents by modeling Christ-like love. Or college students tending to a widow’s home to make sure she’s taken care of. So not only are we affirming the role of the family in passing along the teaching to love God and love others, but we find in Christ that we have an even greater family in which no one is left out.