Honor your father and mother, that it may go well
with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.What does this mean?
We should fear and love God that we do not dishonor or anger
our parents and others in authority, but honor, serve, and obey
them, and give them love and respect.
This commandment applies to both our parents and anyone else in authority over us. As we grow older, we often find that those with authority over us can be younger in years—but they are still to be given our obedience and respect under this commandment.
But let’s begin with parents. With all other relationships, whether brothers and sisters, co-workers, business partners, strangers or enemies, we are commanded by Christ simply to “love one another” (John 13:34). Paul calls this “the continuing debt” that we have under the law (Romans 13:8), and is the chief part of “behaving decently” as children of God looking ahead to the Day that is almost here (Romans 13:12-13). But with parents, we are commanded to do more than love them: we are also commanded to honor them.
Luther said:
“They should regard their parents as in God’s stead, and remember that however lowly, poor, frail, and odd they may be, nevertheless they are father and mother given them by God. They are not to be deprived of their honor because of their conduct or their failings. Therefore we are not to regard their persons, how they may be, but the will of God who has thus created and ordained. In other respects we are, indeed, all alike in the eyes of God; but among us there must necessarily be such inequality and ordered difference, and therefore God commands it to be observed, that you [children] obey me as your father.” (Large Catechism)
We love and honor our parents because God gave them to us. Whether they are a burden or a joy today, they are gifts to us, just as we are gifts for them.
We also owe our other leaders, including the government, our obedience, as Paul says in Romans 13. Whether this is abiding by laws or paying taxes, it is our place and part of our lives as Christians to be good citizens, good employees, as if employer, President, General, Admiral, policeman, etc., were our parents or grandparents in the flesh.
The grace of God is that when we have failed to do these things, his forgiveness is ours in Christ, and with the help of the Holy Spirit we pray that he would turn us from our failings and our sins, and enable us to keep this commandment cheerfully.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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