A Lesson In Authority part 8

Scriptural Attitudes

The Bible commands us: “Honor thy father and mother, and He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” Jesus quotes this Old Testament command to the Pharisees in Matthew 15:3-4. There is no question of age here. One cannot read this command in this context and say, “Well, I am old enough now, I don’t have to honor my father and mother.” Yes, you do. Jesus was here talking to the Pharisees—grown men—and he rebuked them for not obeying this command.

And what does it mean to “honor?” According to Albert Barnes, It means “to obey, to reverence, to speak kindly to, to speak and think well of.” To “curse” means: “to disobey, to treat with irreverence, to swear at, to speak ill of, to think evil of in the heart, to meditate or do any evil to a parent.” All this is included in the original word”. And what does it mean to “let him die the death”? “This is a Hebrew phrase, the same as saying, let him surely die. The Jewish law punished this crime with death. This duty of honoring and obeying a parent was what Christ said they had violated by their traditions.”(Barnes Notes on the New Testament, Matthew volume, page 159.)

Ephesians 6:1 talks about children obeying, but this passage, pressed home by Jesus Himself, is addressed to adults, and it lines up with the rest of the Bible on this subject of obeying parents. The sons of Jacob—Judah, Simeon, Levi, Reuben, and all the rest were grown men with families, and some of them were grandparents, when they urged their father, Jacob, to let them take Benjamin and go down into Egypt a second time to buy grain. Jacob told them “no,” and they all obeyed.

Not one of them made the excuse that they were grown men and had every right to go down to buy grain for the famine of their houses. But they obeyed their father. Jacob eventually relented and said they could go, but until he said they could go, they did not move one step over the desert path of Horus to go down into Egypt. In short, you never get old enough to dishonor your parents.