How to love your parents

You can do better than this kid.

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)

What does it mean to “honor your father and mother”?
The word most English versions translate as ‘honor’ is the Hebrew word kabbed. Kabbed is used in several places in the Old Testament, and these uses give us a sense of what it means for us in the 5th commandment.

Prize highly
Proverbs 4:8 uses the word to speak of the way we should value and treasure wisdom. To honor your parents means to cherish them, guard them, treasure them, prize them.

Care, affection
In Psalm 91:15, kabbed is the word used to describe what the Lord does for His people when cares for them, when He hears their cries, and delivers them from trouble. Duty itself does not fulfill the 5th commandment. Our calling is above and beyond – we are to care for and show affection for our parents.

Respect
Leviticus 19:3 – “Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God.” Contemporary American culture has largely lost a sense of respect for our parents and grandparents. I was in Japan for a summer a few years ago, and I was struck how much that culture continues to honor the aged, while ours pays very little attention. As soon as an older man or woman would get on a train, young people would automatically pop up and offer their seats without even thinking about it. I’ve ridden a lot of trains in New Jersey and New York, and I can’t ever remember that happening.

Obey
Obedience is a large part of honoring our parents. This is the way Paul interprets the command in Ephesians 6 – “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” This probably one of the first verses you’ll want to teach your kids when they’re old enough to memorize Scripture. For children, honoring your parents means first and foremost, obeying them.

Honoring you parents changes a bit when you reach adulthood. For most adults, honoring your parents will be predominantly about affection, time, and respect. For me, this task of honoring my parents often takes the form of listening patiently to the advice my parents love to give me. My parents don’t have the authority or the responsibility to command me, as they used to. But they still have the responsibility and the right to be involved in my life. And I am to honor them by letting them.

Financial and General Care
Lastly, the honoring of your parents has a financial aspect. One of the primary purposes for the 5th commandment was the ensuring that elderly parents would be cared for, after they had gone beyond the age where they could provide for themselves.

This has enormous implications for our situation today. We live in a culture that brainwashes us into thinking we have a right to a convenient, problem-free, inconvenience-free life. This is the ideal in America. And it doesn’t seem that many American Christians think too differently.

So what happens, then, when our parents grow old and begin to have trouble caring for themselves? The culture tells us, “Don’t inconvenience yourself! You have plans, after all.” And so we ship our parents and grandparents off to nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. Sure, we’ll make an occasional visit, but we won’t bother ourselves with real care.

If you are having to make some decisions regarding your parents’ health, let me suggest to you that in response to the 5th commandment, we have the obligation to at least prayerfully consider caring for our parents at home. The world will tell you – do what’s best for you. Do what’s more convenient. Do what’s easier. But the Christian call to honor and serve demands that we think about it differently. What’s best for mom and dad? Where will they be happiest? Where will they be most comfortable?

I want to affirm that there are times that honoring your parents may involve putting them in some assisted-living facility. That might be best for them, given the level of care they need. It might be even what they want. But let’s make sure that we make that decision based on what’s best for them, not on what we think is best or easiest for us.