I don’t specifically remember my parents ever using this on me, but I have heard of the practice from many others. From atheist parents quoting it in an attempt to keep their children from attending Christian groups((Yes this did happen to some people I knew in high school whose parents did not want them attending Bible Club)) to parents trying to keep their queer children from coming out. Many parents have told their children what to do under the guise of “honor thy parents.”
But, is doing what they ask simply because they’re your parents actually honoring to them, or is it them using a verse to manipulate you, an action that is definitively considered spiritual abuse?
It would be easy for me to pull up a half-assed word summary and say kabad, the Hebrew word used in Exodus 20:12, means multiple things other than honor. It’s even used to describe the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.((https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/exo/8/15/t_conc_58015)) But that would cheapen the discussion so I’ll just throw it out there as a thought and move forward.
However, I’d rather spend most of the discussion looking at the time Paul tells parents to honor their parents in Ephesians 6. And I do this for a number of reasons. While I don’t doubt most parents are attempting to quote the commandment only when they remind their children of it, Paul does give us a lot of insight into what exactly is meant by the commandment.
It’s at the beginning of a section of family dynamics, ending with how masters should treat their slaves. “But slaves aren’t a part of the family!” I hear you. And that may be true from our understanding of slavery, it’s not exactly how family dynamics worked in Biblical times. And this is vital to remember.
When we think of families we think of parents and children. Once the children grow up they move out and create their own families. While some parents attempt to still have influence over their adult children’s lives, most recognize this transition as a time when the child becomes their own person who can make their own decisions.
But this isn’t how families worked during Biblical times. Entire families lived together, in a house that was essentially a small village. The head of the family was the oldest male, the head father, with everyone’s place as a subordinate beneath him. This included not only unmarried children but also married children and everyone’s slaves.
So when Paul tells children to honor their parents, he isn’t just telling young children to honor their parents, he’s also telling adult children to honor their parents, all the way up to the head father. It’s not just one’s direct parents that need to be honored, but all generations of parents still living. This is much different from the way family dynamics function today.
But its also important to remember that Paul does not tell children to obey their parents, he tells them to honor them. That’s a key difference. Honor doesn’t mean all that much in society today, but in antiquity, it was a form of currency that measured someone’s worth. The more honor you had in society, the “better” you were.
In today’s world, we tell people not to worry about what others think about them. That is in direct contrast to the honor-shame system of antiquity. What other people thought of you was your measure of worth. As such, honoring your parents means more about doing things in society that make the family look good (benevolence, heroism, advancements, etc.) and less about doing what your parents tell you to do.
It’s also telling that most parents completely fail to acknowledge the next verse in which parents are told to not exasperate their children but bring them up in the way of the Lord. While there are some who will assert that asking your children to follow specific rules and guidelines is bringing them up in the way of the Lord, I doubt the Lord would be one of them. The way of the Lord is as simple as “Love God. Love Others.”
So parents that tell their children not to attend Christian events based on honoring their parents are directly asking them not to be brought up in the way of Lord, thereby failing to meet the requirements they themselves are asking for.
And parents that ask their queer children not to come out for fear of way it makes them look have forgotten that society has changed, and their worth is not based on their honor or position in society. Furthermore, they forget it’s better for their children to be healthy and whole than to worry about what others think.
What would honoring our parents look like today, for young and adult children alike?
Respecting them.
Taking their advice into consideration.
Treating them with dignity.
Taking care of them.
It’s not about doing everything they say, it’s about recognizing that they love us and just want what’s best for us. It’s okay to disagree, but it’s not okay to treat them poorly because of it.
Likewise, it is important for parents to not to hurt their children by asking certain things of them. Parents can bring their children up in the way of the Lord by respecting them as people, respecting their boundaries, and not expecting them to conform to every wish they have as parents. Children are unique individuals and deserve to be treated as such by their parents, allowing them to grow into their own.
