Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. We're here today to talk about the fifth commandment, honor your father and mother. Have you noticed? Honoring your father and mother is not on the list in the success books, but it is in God's, and I've got a story to tell you about that. Hope you enjoy the podcast.

Well, okay. So welcome to Planet Dishonor. Okay. I mean, planet or planet honor. Yeah, two different planets, two different trajectories and results.

You know, our whole culture does not encourage honoring parents. Our institutions don't. And the other problems are hearts are against honoring those who are in authority. We kick against authority. We naturally want to go our own way, especially when we grow older and get into our teen years, then we really, we just know so much.

We know more than our parents. But the fifth commandment stands in the way. It's kind of a hard time for the fifth commandment. Here's the, here, here's the rendition of it in Ephesians six, children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth and you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath but bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord.

So you have these two sides, what children need to do and what parents need to do, and both of them work together to preserve honor. There's an article written by Thomas Watson where he pegs this commandment to what Paul says in Colossians 3.20, which is, children obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. So this is about parents and it isn't about parents. It is about parents in that there are real obligations put on us by the Word of God. And by the way, it's so pervasive in the Word of God that that should tell us that we have an inclination against it, that it needs to be so often repeated in the Scriptures.

But it isn't about parents in the sense that there is something more important that is beyond even your disposition and treatment of your parents, which is your disposition and treatment of God. It's well pleasing to God and It is an honoring of God when I honor my parents. And that makes sense if we understand the parental authority is granted by God. God has given children to parents, put the parents in authority. And that is, I think it was Calvin's article that this is the testing ground where you will learn how to honor and obey God by honoring and obeying your parents.

And that's part of the reason that God gives parents, gives them children, to raise them up in the nurture and munition of the Lord so that they can learn by obeying and honoring their parents how to obey and honor God. Yeah, you know, Calvin, in that section, he makes it really clear, you know, this is part of the Ten Commandments. It's part of, it's the second table of the law. And he says that this commandment really just goes, it goes beyond parents. It goes to all authorities.

And maybe even hailing to Romans 13, all authority, you know, is given by God and God gives various authorities to his people. Everyone is under some authority at all times. You never get out from under somebody's authority. And so Calvin believed, and the Puritans believed, that the Fifth Commandment was broader than just for parents. That it applied particularly to older people and those who are an authority over you.

Right. So Robert, you're using language that doesn't jive with humanism. The human centric view of this is boy meets girl chemical processes. There happens to be a baby on the far side of that, and you just happen to be the people that provided the chemical for the processes. The language that you're using is consistent with the biblical worldview, which is God is actually giving parents to children and children to parents.

We're given to each other, not as a random act of chemical processes, but God determining to put certain children in certain homes. And so the parents you have are the parents that God gives you. If the Bible is to be believed, that's true. The parents that you have are the parents that God has given you. And so he's in position to say, you're to honor your parents.

Right. We're not materialists. We're not just focused or believe that all that exists is just matter of motion. There's intentionality. You have the parents you have and the children you have because God gave them to you.

There is a supreme plan that's being worked out even to the point of who is in your family and God's commands on how to relate with that family. And like you said, it expands beyond that family. It's also what church you're in. It's also what country you're in, what time you live in, all these things. God has put you there under these authorities and all that is kind of summed up in this.

You are to honor those authorities because that is ultimately honoring God. Yeah, and I think that the point is that God gives you the authorities you need. Authorities, you know, might push you around a little bit. They might challenge you. They always, they will, right?

So why, why does God give us authorities that aren't perfect? He's sanctifying us. He wants us to grow. He wants us to learn how to live in a fallen world and actually to be a humble person who's growing in the midst of whatever authorities he's got. So we're bouncing off of some articles that are going to be included in the next edition of Theology of the Family.

There's some really good ones. One of them by John Calvin. And Calvin calls the parent-child relationship testing grounds for faith in God, honoring God. This is your first contact. When you become a human being, this is your first contact with authority and authority that contradicts your sense of autonomy.

We actually need to have our sense of autonomy contradicted and parents are the first ones to do that. And so it really does become a testing grounds of what is in my heart relative to the authorities on... It won't be the last. It is the first, but it won't be the last. Then there may be other instructors, then there may be church leaders, then there will be civil government.

And so your whole life, you're going to be relating to authorities. You learn to relate to them, and it's a testing grounds, can you swallow this pill that God is giving us? Authorities are actually good. They bring blessing into our lives. The worst kind of government is no government.

The worst kind of government is anarchy, lack of government. You never find situations that are more terrible than anarchy. Even bad government is better than anarchy. And parents are our introduction into that world of authority, which is actually good for us and we need it. You know, your parents are by definition older than you are.

And so there's this whole thread in scripture about honoring the gray headed in Leviticus 1932, you shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of the old man and fear your God. I am the Lord. I was reading, I believe it was Elizabeth Dodd's biography of Sarah Edwards, Marriage to a Difficult Man, and I believe in that biography she says that when the parents or any other older person would walk in the room, the Edwards children would all arise. Well, that's a picture of honor, which has really fled from the culture. Absolutely.

I mean, even in Christian families, you don't find that sensitivity to honoring the gray-headed or to honor the authority. Yeah. What do we say about the gray-headed now? We say, okay, boomer. That is the common vernacular, right?

Okay, boomer. Very dismissive of the gray hairs. The Bible actually goes in completely the opposite direction. And that kind of mockery, teasing, whatever. You're not only dishonoring your authority, dishonoring your parents when you just directly talk back or disobey or something like that, but it's also this jeering, mocking attitude.

Right. Dismissiveness. Or just outright dismissiveness. You have advice or instruction from a parent or another authority, an elder or magistrate or whatever, and you reject that and go just to your peers, because they're gonna be more likely to tell you what you already want to hear. And that doesn't work out very well most of the time.

I don't know of any time in Scripture when that actually works out well, like Rehoboam, the kingdom fell apart because he did exactly that. You remember the 40 youth that were devoured by she bears in the Old Testament? What were they called in Elijah? Going up old baldy. Old bald, old bald head.

I'm a little sensitive to that. So, some words to parents. So, another one of these articles from the expanded edition of Theology of the Families by Thomas Watson, and he has some counsel to parents. Here's some things that I took down in my notes. Be honorable.

Everybody knows some parents are easy to honor and some parents are harder to honor. When we're hard to honor, we're actually tempting our children to sin in ways that can really harm them. There's a promise attached to this commandment that it may be well with you, and you can actually sort of lure your children through being dishonorable. They're still not allowed to dishonor you. Well, what if you're dishonorable and they do dishonor you?

Well, they actually bring those repercussions, this reaping of the sowing that they've done into their life. But really if you trace it back to the roots of it, your dishonorable behavior, as parents contributed to that. Here's another one. Keep up parental authority. So he doesn't say it in this language, but this is the point.

You're not their buddy, you're their parent. You actually need to keep up parental authority to secure honor, to insist on the honor. You know, often in the home we get only what we insist upon. And parents actually have to have a spine and a backbone to insist on receiving honor from their children. Here's another one.

Help them into a lawful calling. This really helps you to secure honor, preparing them for the years to come. When they can see that their future welfare is right in the target for you, you're really laying groundwork for their future success in life, for their future welfare, you're easy to honor there. Here's another one, be loving and prudent. You're not just an authority.

There is a special relationship that goes beyond just boss, employee, king, subject. You owe them a debt of love, and it actually should flow very naturally. God sort of builds in an affection in the hearts of parents for their children. But be loving and prudent. Here's another one.

See what is good and commendable in them. Thomas Watson nails it. Parents who are always only picking at the shortcomings of their children, that is provoking their children to anger. So we should see things that are praiseworthy and commendable, and we should commend them for those things. There's quite a bit of this, what parents' duties are to children.

You know, when we think about the Fifth Commandment, we think of what the children must do. But there's a section from the Westminster Larger Catechism, question 129, what is required of superiors toward their inferiors, it is required that they love, that they pray, that they bless their inferiors, that they instruct them, that they counsel and admonish them, they countenance them, they commend them, they reward them for doing well, they reprove and chastise them when they do evil, they are to protect, they are to provide them all things necessary for the soul and the body. It just goes on and on. So you have this interplay, and I think you get that in Ephesians 6, 1 through 4. You do get children who are required to honor and obey their parents, But then the apostle turns to the fathers and he says, don't exasperate your children.

Bring your children up in the training and admonition of the Lord. In other words, a parent has to be very careful that he's not operating in a way that causes dishonor or causes it hard for his kids to honor him. Yeah. Do the things that will merit the proper treatment in response. And same thing in a marriage, a husband's to love his wife, she's to respect her husband, well, he should be respectable.

And so this consistent theme throughout scripture, be the kind of person that deserves to have this response, be this honorable person so that your children have an easy time honoring you. Don't be hypocritical. Don't be overbearing. Here's one thing parents can do to secure honor. Set the pace.

What do I mean by that? Well, I have parents. My wife has parents. How are we relating to our parents? What's our disposition?

How do we talk to them? How do we talk about them when they're not present? All of that is setting a pace. You might actually see a lot of that in your future might be a good thing for you, might be a very bad thing for you. But we shouldn't be surprised if we have a dishonoring disposition towards our parents, regardless of how honorable they have been or are currently.

We can set expectations with how we're relating to our own parents. And actually, we should give them a great example so that they've seen us be very honorable towards our parents and it comes more naturally to them because they can just do what they saw and we get on or out of it. Yeah. In this new section of Theology of the Family, which is coming out in April, can't wait to get the new copy. It's going to be a great book.

But question 130 in the Westminster Large Catechism, what are the sins of superiors? Besides the neglect of duties required of them, an inordinate seeking of themselves, seeking their own glory, seeking their own profit and pleasure, commanding things that are unlawful, you know, neglecting to counsel them. You know, there are various sins, you know, that we can commit against our children as well. And so if you have a child that's rebelling, what a parent should do is to include looking at themselves. Have they created an environment where dishonor can grow more than normal.

Because every child from birth has the impulse to dishonor their parents and not do what their parents want them to do. So you don't wanna give your children too many excuses to be dishonorable, because it's already resonant in their sinful hearts. Already built in. No one ever had to teach their children to say no. Yeah.

You know, how far does honor and obedience go? You know, Calvin makes it clear, and many of these do too, that it really comes to roost when it's time to get married. And the principle, honor your father and mother, I would just say applies even more to children when they want to get married. How many families have you seen blown up? Children are willing to blow up their families for years because they didn't listen to their parents and the cataclysm, the trouble that happens, it did not go well with them.

So, you know, it's so pivotal that you have the hearts of your children when it is time for them to get married. Yeah, and also that you're laying the groundwork early. Yeah, it's already, you've already done it. Yeah, You've done it a decade before you actually draw on it. You've been laying the groundwork so that they know with no doubt at all that you can't wait to launch them into a fantastic marriage.

That Their desire for a great marriage is your desire for them and that all of that is totally aligned and that you want to be There you want to help them do that you you can't wait to help them do that Yeah, and and I like what you said it starts really really early You know Children need to understand when they're really young, we're gonna work together on this. Sweetie, if somebody's really interested in you, they need to talk to me first. I wanna protect you. I wanna have you marry the best guy possible. And, and then as they grow older, just help them to understand their vulnerability, they'll see stories, they'll, they'll watch stories, you know, flow out before their eyes of children who disaudited their parents and married whoever they wanted to and caused all kinds of trouble for years in their families.

But before you get to that point, There should be just a broad agreement we're going to work together on this. So it's not a new idea when they're 18 or 20 years old. So it's easy, particularly when you're talking about obedience, but also honor. Those things are related but distinct. It's easy to sort of have this two-dimensional discussion where every child is a five-year-old relating to their parents.

Right. But they don't stay five. They become 10, they become 15, they become 20. They might still live in your home when they're 20 or in their early 20s, their mid 20s. This changes the degree to which they should have an obligation to obey, but the obligation to honor never goes away.

But how that looks changes over the decades, too. What are your thoughts about that? Well, I think what children, they need to learn how to obey the first time, right? So that that's the impulse of their heart. They realize there's a more mature, wiser person in the world, and they need to follow that person.

I think that's really where it begins. And then of course when children get older, it's like you're letting out the rope. Because you want them to power up. You want them to make really good decisions. Now you're there to counsel them, but you might let them make some mistakes too.

Yeah, letting out the rope, giving more latitude, managing less over time, sort of as they've given you confidence that that makes sense to do that. You have a really clear cut point. I'm not sure this is the only cut point, but the really clear one is leaving and believing. When you marry and you form your own household, and you still want your parents to be trusted counselors, but you're no longer under the obligation to obey because you have left and formed your own household. That's a really important principle.

I don't think we should push back on that at all. God wants independent households, and yet the command to honor still goes on. So you'll still be talking to your parents, you should be honoring in that. You'll still be talking about your parents when they're not in the room, you still owe honor. One day, your parents will die.

You can actually dishonor your parents after they die. Speaking respectfully to them, about them, all those things will be one of the main ways that you honor parents when you're on your own, you're out of the house. But this idea of the level of obedience and honor, they're tied together, but they are distinct, and that level of authority and obedience rendered changing. I remember in my counseling class several years ago talking about counseling parents with children, you go through multiple stages and they... It's a Baptist school, So everything was alliterated, of course.

The first stage, you're the cop. You have absolute authority. Then you're the coach. You're teaching them how to do things and giving an instruction on why to do things a certain way. Then later, once they're out of your home or maybe even mid to late teens is still in your home, the rest of your life, you're their counselor.

You should be the one that they're going to and we should have that perspective of our parents. They're a resource for us, they're a counselor. They are older, Lord willing, they are significantly wiser because they've had so much more experience and a good resource that should not be neglected, but reverenced and used wisely. Yeah. Amen.

And there's a promise of success that it will go well with you. Years ago, I was invited by a campus ministry down in North Carolina State University to speak to their outgoing seniors about success. And I started out by saying, don't take another step in your career without making sure that you've resolved conflict with your parents and that you're honoring your father and mother. Honoring your father and mother is the greatest leverage point for your success in the future. That was not what they came to hear, that was not what they were expecting to hear, but honestly, that's such a powerful lever to pull.

So honor your father and mother, that it might be well with you. Amen. Amen. Thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. We hope you can join us next time.

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