Today we will look at passages related to honoring parents. There has been
some confusion about this commandment. Does honoring them mean that adult
children must obey their parents' every wish, or fulfill all the expectations
or plans they have for their children? No. It simply means loving them and
showing them respect.
Exodus 20:12 (NAS) Honor your father and your mother,
that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives
you.
Deuteronomy 12:16 (NKJV) Cursed is the one who treats
his father or his mother with contempt. And all the people shall say, "Amen!"
Mark 3:34-36 (NKJV) And He {Jesus} looked around in a
circle at those who sat about Him, and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers!
For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother."
Mark 7:9-13 (NKJV) He {Jesus} said to them, "All too well
you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For
Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and 'He who curses father
or mother, let him be put to death.' But you say, 'If a man says to his father
or mother, 'Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban'--
(that is, a gift to God),' then you no longer let him do anything for his
father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition
which you have handed down. And many such things you do."
Ephesians 6:1-4 (NKJV) Children, obey your parents in
the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first
commandment with promise: that it may be well with you and you may live long
on the earth. And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but
bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
John 19:25-27 (NKJV) Now there stood by the cross of Jesus
His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing
by, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!" Then He said to the
disciple, "Behold your mother!" And from that hour that disciple took her
to his own home.