If you were to name some of the most wicked sins a person could commit, what would make your list? Listen to Paul's own list in Romans 1:29-30, “They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice…full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness…gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” Some of you are thinking, ‘I don’t think disobeying your parents belongs in that lineup.’ Yet sandwiched between “haters of God” and “inventors of evil” we find “disobedient to parents.” And Paul says it again in 2 Timothy 3:1-2, “Understand this, in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents.”
Twice, in two different letters, Paul puts disobedience to parents in the list describing how wrong the world has gone.
Church, the fifth commandment reveals a general principle, that respect and honor are owed to every authority God has placed over us. And God, in His wisdom, so ordered it that the very first classroom for learning this principle would be our homes, with the very first authorities we ever meet, our parents.
Before we go further, I need to correct two assumptions most people bring to this fifth commandment.
First, many hear “honor your father and mother” and think only of children. They picture a child, sitting before their parents, who are telling them to clean their room. Is that what the fifth commandment is all about? Now, children need this text, more than they know, no doubt. But if children is all you think this command speaks to, you’ve missed it. The fifth commandment is not the ‘children's sermon’ of the Ten Commandments. No, you never graduate from this commandment. You’ll always be under authorities in this life. Yes, we begin with our parents, but then we along with our parents we encounter other authorities in life: teachers, bosses, pastors, police, government, ultimately ending with God Himself.
Second, many have a negative attitude towards authority, some even go as far as to say the very first time we hear of authority in the Bible is after our fall into sin in Gen. 3:16 when God says Adam shall rule over his wife. So, like the physical consequences of childbirth and wearisome labor in a world of thorns and thistles, many believe the authority of one human over another is a curse of the fall.[1] I can understand such a view, but it simply isn’t correct. Authority of one over another wasn’t a consequence of the fall, no way. Before the fall we see Adam’s headship over Eve as she is made from him and then given to him as a gift to have and hold, to love and lead, not as dictator but as her own husband. Can authority between husband and wife, or any authority in this world grow corrupt and be manipulated in the wrong direction? Of course it can. But the mere exercise of authority is not the same as the abuse of it.
All in all, nobody in this room this morning is exempt from the fifth commandment.
We find the commandment in Exodus 20:12, which says, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.”
Two headings this morning to see and embrace: The Command, and The Promise. See first…
The Command
The very first thing we must say about the fifth commandment is that it’s a transition point, or a hinge point. The first four commandments are called the first table of the law, which teaches us how to love God: no other gods, no idols, no blasphemy, keeping sabbath. The final six commandments are called the second table of the Law, which teaches us how to love our neighbor: no murder, no adultery, no theft, no lying, no coveting. Yet notice what begins the second table, the commandment to honor your father and mother. This teaches us much. All our love towards our neighbor is founded on the parent-child relationship because it’s the first relationship any of us have, and because it shapes every relationship that comes after it.
Clearly here we see the significance of the family. In v12 there is one father, one mother, and children who are to honor them. That’s the design. Why does this matter so much? Because obedience to parental authority is, fundamentally, obedience to God Himself. You cannot call yourself a follower of Christ and treat your parents’ authority as optional.
Obedience to parents was so serious in the OT that God prescribed the death penalty for children who cursed their parents (Ex. 21:17, Lev. 20:9). In the NT Jesus rebukes the Pharisees who arranged a system where one could think they’re obeying the fifth commandment while leaving their parents uncared for (Matt. 15:3-9). Why such severity? Because in dishonoring our parents, we dishonoring God, which is no small thing.
Think about the authorities in your life right now. There’s God, who deserves your worship above all else. There’s the government, who have been placed over us to bear the sword of steel. Refusing to submit to them, whether or not we like who’s currently in office, is refusing to submit to the Lord put them there (Rom. 13:1-7). There’s the church’s pastors and elders, who God has placed over us to bear the sword of the Spirit. Refusing to submit to them is, refusing to submit to the Lord who put them there (Heb. 13:17). There’s teachers, who ought to be shown a great deal of respect while you’re in the classroom. There’s employers and bosses of all kinds, who aren’t to be mocked but listened to and obeyed as well. And there’s the elderly, who aren’t to be warehoused and forgotten in an institution, but honored and cared for till the end.
Where does all the honor we’re to show to these authorities begin? The fifth commandment says, at home. Thus, the home is to be the proving ground where we learn the art of honoring for the first time.[2] And how important it is to learn it there. Because if a child doesn’t honor authority at home, we should not be surprised if that child doesn’t honor authority anywhere else. Show me an employee who is lazy, dishonest, and impossible to correct, and nine times out of ten, you’re looking at a how that person related to authority as a child. Clearly this commandment, while beginning at home, extends far beyond it. How kind of the Lord, then, to build this into our lives here in the fifth commandment. And how urgent it is for us, then, to relearn the ways godly family life.[3]
The Hebrew word for honor in v12 is ‘kabod.’ It literally means weight, or heaviness. It’s the same word the authors of Scripture use to describe God’s glory. You hear that? God’s very glory, beauty, reputation, the sheer gravity of who He is. That’s this word. And here in the fifth commandment it’s applied to our parents. What does this do to the command? It brings a weightiness to it, a gravity to it, a high importance to it. This is one of the Ten Commandments after all, which remember, is not a suggestion.
I think we get the weight of honor commanded here. But let’s ask a different question now. What does living this out look like? What does carrying this weight look like? In his Bible commentary Matthew Henry, lists many ways to carry out this commandment. Here are a few of them.[4]
Respect
What is this? To respect is to have and maintain an inward esteem for our parents that shows up outwardly in how we relate to them. This looks like speaking kindly of your parents in public and private instead of mocking them behind their backs. It looks like listening when they talk instead of checking your phone, or rolling your eyes at them. This takes work to maintain and the work usually gets harder, not easier, as we get older because the older we get the more we think we know and the less we think our parents know. Proverbs 30:17 says we disobey the fifth commandment to our peril, “The eye that mocks a father, and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.” Honoring our mother and father looks like respect.
Obedience
This is so often seen as a bad word by Christians, left only for things like dog training. Obedience is not resentful or forced coercion, or a bare compliance without love which is its own kind of dishonor. Obedience is cheerful, willing, and immediate compliance. Ephesians 6:1 affirms this saying, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” Matthew Henry says it like this to kids, “Come when they call, go where they send you, do what they ask you to do, and refrain from what they forbid.”[5] Proverbs 6:20-22 puts it beautifully, “My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching. Bind them on your heart always, tie them around your neck. When you walk they will lead you, when you lie down they will watch over you, when you awake they will talk with you.” Perhaps we have forgotten, or haven’t ever thought of it, but our parents have usually walked through terrain we haven’t. They’ve made mistakes they’d love to spare us from. To drown out their voice with the noise of your own opinions is to dishonor them and ensure your own folly. Honoring our mother and father looks like obedience.
Submission
This word is also usually seen as a negatively, as a strong word where one party forces their will onto another. Is that what this means for the parent child relationship? No. Rather, this word speaks to what will leads ought to lead children. In themselves they want this or that, to go here or there, yet in it all they are to submit to their parents will. The hardest arena this occurs in is discipline. Hebrews 12 makes the case: no discipline feels pleasant in the moment, but it trains us, it teaches us, and one of the greatest lessons we learn in it is how God Himself disciplines those He loves. If parents love their children, they’ll discipline them…if children love their parents, they’ll submit to them. If you’re a parent who refuses to discipline your children, you need to know you’re not making life better for them, you’re serving your own comfort and putting your children at great risk. Where are they to learn about truth/falsehood, goodness/wickedness, and wisdom/folly, if not from you? Our children will be discipled, and God intends it to be done by their parents, just as God intends children to submit to their parents discipleship. Honoring our mother and father looks like submission.
Now, there is an important caution with this. It’s real easy to live out the fifth commandment and everything I’ve said so far…if you have godly parents/authorities in your life. If you don’t, there’s a real struggle isn’t there? If that’s you, you probably have been dreading getting to this fifth commandment because of what your past was like or what your everyday is still like. If that’s you, hear this. Obedience to authorities isn’t unlimited. Abandonment, abuse, and coercive manipulation should never be ignored or hidden in the name of the fifth commandment. Honoring those in authority over us doesn’t mean sweeping sin under the rug, it actually can look like standing up to those in authority and telling them ‘no more.’
So there is a time to disobey authorities, certainly. When? If any authority tells you to do something God has forbidden, or forbids you from doing something God has commanded, you obey God, always, and disobey the authority in view. Ephesians 6:1 doesn’t just say “obey your parents” but says “obey your parents in the Lord,” which means parental authority must be honoring to the Lord. So the honor we’re to give in the fifth commandment is not the same thing as compliance with sin, and it's not the same thing as staying silent about real abuse.
God placed parents in authority (and every authority in authority) to reflect His own authority, not to replace His authority with something lesser.
Well, there is loads more we could discuss here, but we’ve seen much of what’s commanded here in the fifth commandment, now see what follows it.
The Promise
Exodus 20:12, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.”
Did you notice that? This command comes with a promise, and a great promise at that! This was a concrete promise to the people of Israel, that their life in the promise land would be long if they honored their parents. For us, we also can take it as a promise that God has built into the fabric of how the world works. What promise? Children who honor their parents, as a rule, tend to live longer and better lives than those who don't.[6] There are exceptions. But the pattern holds.
What happens if you don’t honor father and mother? You’ll likely cross the safe boundaries they’ve built around you and get in all kinds of trouble.
What happens if you don’t honor your teachers? You’ll likely not learn anything you need to, and without education your options later on will be limited.
What happens if you don’t honor your employers? You’ll likely get fired, and have to find another job, until you lose that one, and on and on and on.
What happens if you don’t honor your pastors? You won’t grow to know the Lord, but will continue on in your sin, bringing immediate and eternal horrible consequences to you.
What happens if you don’t honor the government and the authorities they’ve put in place? Simple, you break laws you’ll find yourself in a courtroom before a judge, and might have to face lengthy consequences.
Lesson? The promise is real. If you don’t begin at home, if you don’t honor your parents when you’re young, you’ll likely grow up to live the kind of life that’ll land you in jail or in the gutter.
But, turn all of that around and see the promise of the fifth commandment.
What happens if you honor father and mother? You’ll thrive as a child, and you’ll enjoy the safety and love of a reassuring environment.
What happens if you honor your teachers? You’ll likely learn a whole lot and be set up for success in many respects later in life.
What happens if you honor your employers? You’ll likely rise within the ranks, maybe be given a raise or get promoted, and will move higher and higher in whatever career you’re in.
What happens if you honor your pastors? You’ll grow in the knowledge of the Lord, His ways, His Word, His will, and His love, bringing immediate and eternal glorious consequences to you.
What happens if you honor the government and the authorities they’ve put in place? Simple, you don’t go to jail and you’ll enjoy the benefit of living underneath their protection.
Lesson? The promise is real. Honoring authority begins at home, if you do it when you’re young, you’ll likely grow up to live the kind of life that’ll be long and wonderful.
Conclusion:
I want to end with this.
Recognizing the weight of honor, and giving proper respect and submission to the authorities in our lives isn’t necessarily a Christian thing to do, is it? No, of course not. It’s a good thing, a moral thing, a virtuous thing, but Christian? Not entirely. I know pagans who do teach their kids to honor them just because by nature they believe it’s right to do. What do we make of that? Well, to that I’d say this. Teaching our children to be moral without the gospel is just empty manners. Teaching them to have ideals without the gospel is just dressed up idolatry. If we teach our kids to obey the fifth commandment without teaching them the gospel, we’ll create little Pharisees.
Church, God’s grace raises us higher. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says it like this, “Grace raises the commandment to the highest level…we are to obey our parents, and honor them, and respect them in order to please our Lord and Savior who is looking down upon us.”[7]
So remember the goal. The goal of parenting was never to just raise a well-behaved child. It’s very possible to raise a kid who never talks back, gets good grades, says ‘yes mam’ and ‘no sir’ while remaining a thousand miles away from God. Mere outward compliance isn’t the goal. What is the goal? The goal is raising God-glorifying children who love Jesus and whose obedience to us flows from a changed heart…not just fear of consequences. How do we do this? We must know Christ ourselves, teach Christ to our children, show them Christ in the Scriptures, and model Christ to them in daily life. Parent, don’t settle for just moral kids. Aim higher, aim for worship.
If this is our goal, by God’s grace, we’ll get the privilege of watching our children grow in all that is good, true, and beautiful…and wherever they go in life, they’ll be those who honor all authorities, not for their sake, but for the Lord’s.
[1] Stephen Spinnenweber, Loving the Law: The Law of God in the Life of the Believer (Geanies House, Fearn, Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus, 2025) 40.
[2] Spinnenweber, 40.
[3] J.I. Packer, The Ten Commandments (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1983) 49.
[4] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991) 285.
[5] Henry, 285.
[6] Spinnenweber, 41.
[7] Jason Meyer, Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life: Doctrine and Life as Fuel and Fire (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018) 176.
