The Ten Commandments: Four

Martin Luther recommended daily meditation on the Ten Commandments, using each Command to Instruct, to provide inspiration for Thanksgiving, to reflect upon in Repentance, and to conclude with Praise to God.

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Fourth Commandment

Honor your father and your mother.  What does this mean?  We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them [older translation “hold them in love and esteem.”]

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.  Exodus 20: 12

Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.  Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbath’s.  I am the Lord your God.  Leviticus 19: 2b-3

The eye that mocks the father, that scorns obedience to the mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures.  Proverbs 30: 17

Jesus said “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?  For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’  But you say that if a man says to his father or mother ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it.  Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites!  Isaiah was right about you when he prophesied about you:  “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.”  Matthew 15: 3-9

Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.  “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—“that it may go well with you and you may enjoy long life on the earth.”  Ephesians 6: 1-3

Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father.  Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.  Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need.  But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.  1 Timothy 5: 1-4

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.  The authorities that exist have been established by God.  Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgement on themselves.  For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong.  Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority?  Then do what is right and he will commend you.  For he is God’s servant to do you good.  But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.  He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.  Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.  Romans 13: 1-5

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There is a divinely ordained order to Creation, beginning with the fear and honor due to the Creator and Redeemer God and continuing to those given to earthly authority, particularly father and mother but also including other earthly leaders and authorities.  As Paul points out in Ephesians 6, this is the first command with a promise, that obedience to father and mother is a source of blessing; later in Romans 13, he reminds us that God has given earthly leader’s their authority and we must submit to them out of obedience to God.  The blessing is promised, but also the blessing of good order and peace flows from such obedience; rejecting the order of God’s creation results in chaos and disarray. There is no promise that father and mother or earthly kings and governments will be always wise or always Godly—only that we must honor them because ultimately God is in control of all in authority, those in authority are an extension of God Himself as He rules the world in justice and for our good.  The command to honor parents extends throughout a lifetime; it does not expire in adulthood, there is no earthly end to the bond of honor between child and parent.  There is also little distinction made between mother and father; both are worthy of honor, and disrespect of either comes with promised consequences.  The honor due to parents is also extended to all who are older, by virtue of their age and experience even if not also by virtue of wisdom and righteousness.  

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the divine order which You have established, which is built into the blueprint of all of Creation.  You are truly a God of order and peace and never of chaos or disorder.  In this divinely appointed order, we rest secure:  we know that spring follows winter, that apples fall from trees, that sperm and egg unit to form a child created in Your image.  Your ways are higher than our ways, but by giving us order You reveal Yourself to us and You allow us to study and understand Your creation.  We thank You in particular for the good order given to us in families:  for the nature of male and female, for the role of mother and father, for the blessing of children.  We thank You for the security of family, for a place to nurture the spiritual faith and physical health of men and women, boys and girls; we thank You that you promise to bless and sustain all of us in the roles in which You have placed us. We thank You also for the order given to the world through good governments and just rulers.  We praise You for Your divine authority, exercised through leaders around the world; we praise You for the role of good citizens in upholding laws and honoring You by honoring authority.  We thank You for stability and peace in society, and for using those in authority to govern and bless Your world and Your people. We thank you for others given authority in life: for teachers and police, for those in the military and in the justice system; they bless us with their service and we thank you for the diversity of gifts You give to Your people.

Lord God, we confess that we fail in many ways and in many occasions to honor and obey those placed in authority over us.  We have disregarded the roles given to parents and to children, to male and female, to mother and father; we have caused chaos and disorder in our own lives by choosing selfishly.  We have not honored our parents, but instead harbored impatience, anger, frustration, bitterness and contempt.  We have neglected the respect due to parents, and neglected to meet their needs in age, loneliness and ill health.  We have dishonored our own role as mother or father, causing bitterness and frustration to our children and failing to meet their needs for security, discipline and spiritual growth.  We have neglected the honor due to civic leaders, to governments and those in authority over us; we have not honored teachers or police officers or others in authority, instead choosing to defy civil order in the name of personal gain or for the sake of personal pride.  We have failed as citizens, defaming those in authority and neglecting our duty to vote and be active members of our communities.   We struggle daily to give honor due to those in authority above us; we make idols of our own will, our own needs, our own comforts.  All of these actions undermine the goodness of Your world; we have reaped the consequences of our choices and are filled both with regret and with guilt as we see the disorder which is consequent to the disobedience of Your commands.

In the Name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, we plead for forgiveness for our sins against this commandment.  We pray that You would renew our commitment to respecting our mothers and our fathers, that You would fill us with Your Spirit of patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control as we honor our fathers and mothers in sickness, in age, in confusion and conflict.  Bless us with Your wisdom as we honor laws and the leaders appointed over us, as we vote and participate in the civil realm.  Bless both our actions and our thoughts.  Nurture all relationships which honor the order and peace of this world.  Bless in particular each family, the roles of mother and father, parent and child, child and parent.  

Triune God, You exemplify divine and peaceable communion of Unity in One Person; we praise You for the holiness and blessedness of Your nature, the mystery of Trinity which demonstrates to us that community and shared love flows from Your nature.  You have created us in community and with gifted roles out of Your nature, and we praise You for Your wisdom and the blessings that come to us in all that You have created.  We praise You for the gift of family and the roles which You have established as a source of blessing to each person and to the whole world.  We praise You for mother and father who blessed us through biology with life; and for mother and father who nurtured and raised us in wisdom and faith.  We praise You for all in authority who have given us structure, guidance and love.  We praise You for the stability of society which exists in the world, despite the influence of sin and evil which surrounds us; we praise You that Your goodness prevails, a light in the darkness of sin.  Above all, we praise You for the salvation from sins won by Jesus Christ, the assurance of forgiveness for all wrongs, and the promise of eternal redemption of all of creation and all of the faithful into eternity with You where all relationships will be healed, and all authority will be Yours forever.  In Jesus Name, AMEN.