This is part of an ongoing series on the Ten Commandments. God’s word reveals to us the laws he requires for living in the world as he has ordered it, and only by living according to this law are we able to flourish and enjoy our creational purpose: to glorify God and enjoy him. This series explores how Christians, whose identity is in Christ and whose inheritance is stored in eternity, should live under and live out the Ten Commandments.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”— Exodus 20:12
The Fifth Commandment is no one’s favorite. It almost seems out of place, wedged between commands about what we owe God and moral laws that seem obvious in well-functioning societies.
But this commandment isn’t out of place. Just as we are to honor God, who is the giver of all life, we are to honor those who gave us life.
But the Fifth Commandment is more than a mere rule. In fact, it is so important that, without it, we cannot have healthy societies, communities, and homes.
Love, Care, and Obligation
In a recent article in Cosmopolitan magazine, a piece was run titled, Why So Many Young People Are Cutting Off Their Parents. In it, a young woman named Jordan shares her story about how she joined a growing trend of young adults who are cutting off their toxic family members.
In this article, she justifies her decision to stop talking to her father by saying, “It’s an extreme privilege to have a great relationship with your adult children.”
We are often told in pop-culture that the relationships in our lives exist to serve our needs. If a friendship is not serving us, influencers and pop-therapists tell us to move on. Above all else, we need to pursue what is life-giving to us—hence, Jordan’s statement.
In the Fifth Commandment, however, we see that God is calling us into relationships where there is love, care, and—yes—obligation.
The question is, then, should we still endeavor to honor our parents even if they are not easy, or convenient, to get along with? Even if they are dishonorable?
The Difficulty of the 5th Commandment
While the Fifth Commandment is a part of the moral and natural law that is engraved on all human consciences (Rom. 2), there are also biblical narratives that help bring out its depth and set it apart from a simple proverb. We should start in Genesis—otherwise known as the book about the most dysfunctional families in history.
After God makes a covenant with Noah and the earth, Genesis 9:18 says, “The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (and Ham was the father of Canaan.)” The note that “Ham was the father of Canaan” would have cued Israel, the ones who first received the stories of Genesis, into something important.
The Promised Land was in Canaan, and the people Israel was told to drive out of the land were descendants of Ham. They were being driven out and judged for the evil and barbaric practices that were prominent in their culture (Gen. 15:16), but here, we see that that darkness has a beginning. And it begins with dishonoring one’s father, even a sinful and embarrassing father.
“Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became weighed down,” or drunk, “and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside” (Gen. 9:20-22).
Noah dishonored himself and Ham exploited that shame. But Shem and Japheth honored their father despite his shame, and they “covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness” (Gen. 9:23). When Noah woke up and understood what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers” (Gen. 9:24).
In light of the story of Noah and the promised land, we see that the Fifth Commandment isn’t just about having good table manners. The honor it calls us to looks like reaching out to our parents with dignity, even in their foolishness. Not because they have earned it, but because they need it. When we honor our flawed parents, we remind them of the dignity and gravity of their role. If we instead mock our parents, like Ham, we expose ourselves as those who revel in shame.
The Fifth Commandment Is For Parents Too
The Fifth Commandment is for adults, too. Under the Old Covenant, we see that we are not to kill, strike, or curse our parents (Ex. 21:15; Lev. 20:9). More pointedly, they are not to be ridiculed or insulted in any way (Prov. 23:22, 30:17). Israel is told not to disobey parental advice by becoming “stubborn and rebellious, a drunkard and a sloth” (Deut. 21:18-21)—the context of these commands are associated with how adults are to treat their elderly parents.
However, the Fifth Commandment also implies instructions for how parents are to treat their children. When Paul quotes this commandment in Ephesians 6, he says, “fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but rear them in the training and reproof of the Lord” (6:1-4). Just as children are called to hold parents in deference, parents are called to handle the responsibility of caring for their children and raising them up in the “fear and admonition of the Lord” with reverence.
This is why the Westminster Larger Catechism lists parent’s sins in regard to the Fifth Commandment as, “an inordinate seeking of themselves, their own glory, ease, profit, or pleasure; commanding things unlawful, or not in the power of [children] to perform...correcting them unduly” (WLC Q&A 130).
The Fifth Commandment is absolutely integral for healthy communities—it instills in us principles for how we are to treat the elderly and the young, the weakest and most dependent members in a home and society. It guides the young and ambitious to heed the wisdom of the elderly and it restrains the wrathful reactions of adults towards those under their care, helping children hold their parents accountable before the Lord.
The Obedient and Beloved Son
As we can see, the Fifth Commandment helps us cultivate the kinds of healthy relationships we need. The only problem is that we do not honor our parents, even on their best behavior. In fact, we can easily treat them with disdain rather than deference. We have a hard time honoring the people who gave us life because we can’t honor the life-giver himself. And unlike our parents, who might be fooled with a smile, God looks at the heart—which is why we need Jesus’s obedience to the Fifth Commandment.
Jesus never dismissed his earthly parents as foolish or embarrassing. Even on the cross, Jesus took care of his mother’s earthly needs and entrusted her earthly care to John the Apostle (John 19:26–27).
And Jesus is the obedient and beloved Son, who allows us prodigals to be welcomed into the family of God. Through faith in Christ, and by the Spirit, we will find it possible to honor our flawed, even hypocritical parents. Just as we did not earn the beloved Son’s honor and obedience to his Father, we can give honor to our parents, even when they haven’t earned it. We can honor them because, in doing so, we are honoring our heavenly Father.
