Lead:

The Bible doesn’t say “honor your parents” with qualifiers like “when they do all the right things.” So how do we honor even those who are dishonorable? And how might that extend to other relationships?

Intro:

If you’ve been listening for any length of time, you know that I’m easily amused and have no shame laughing into the mic. And one of those things you might remember from Romans chapter one when Paul rattles off a long list of sins like envy and murder and right in the middle of it he says, “disobedient to parents.” That has always just struck me as funny because it seems out of place. But it does bring up a serious thing to think about: The Bible’s clear about honoring your parents, and it doesn’t say to do so only when they make all the right decisions and never do something stupid or hurtful. And given that in Ephesians Paul has a lot to say about unity and relationship, we’ll look at that in our All Our Minds segment today.

Father in heaven, I know someone here has good reason to feel a sense of angst when it comes to parents or other relationships in their lives. But Lord, today we come to you. We lay down our pride. We set aside the voices of the Prince of the Power of the Air to come to You to listen. In Jesus’ might name, amen.

Yesterday we turned the corner in Ephesians. In the first half Paul lays out in no uncertain terms what the Gospel is, that it the work of the Holy Spirit that transforms us (not a set of practices or rituals), and that we should pursue unity in relationship according to the riches of His grace. Then we got into the second half where he starts getting specific about how that should transform us both personally and socially — including and especially fellow believers with whom we are somehow all one as the bride of Jesus.

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Bible:

Passage: Ephesians 5-6
Translation: LEB (Lexham English Bible)
Verses: 57
Words: ~1107

All Our Minds:

Here’s the thing. Like I said, honoring our parents doesn’t come with qualifiers. From a purely earthly perspective in a world of broken people, there are people who really don’t seem to deserve a shred of honor. But that’s not what the 10 commandments says, and New Testament authors affirm honoring parents as part of what Paul calls “the law of Christ.” Logically, then, there must be a way to honor your parents even when they’re the worst of the worst.

But I’m not going to stop there. This is true for any relationship where any role-based authority is involved. Remember, for instance, that in Romans 13 Paul tells citizens to honor those in authority, and similarly doesn’t say to only do it when they’re good. It says that leaders for our good. Obviously not all of them are, so it’s another example of asking what it means to be respectful when some of them don’t appear to deserve it.

So this list isn’t going to be exhaustive, but let’s review some principles about honoring the dishonorable. I’ll start more generally, then end more specifically with honoring our parents.

It’s good to remember that “honor” means respect, and like love, it’s that there is a context for it being what we do rather than feel, and we do even when the other person may not deserve it. And unlike how we sometimes think of the word honor, it doesn’t necessarily mean to celebrate or honor as good or perfect or laudable.
As Tim Keller points out, respect for parents is the basis of every other form of respect and authority.
Every single person on the planet is both a leader and a follower. As Christians are concerned, no one is exempt from learning both responsibility as a leader and respect as a follower — what it means to handle one’s own authority with responsibility before God and what it means to respect or honor authority. Citizens, politicians slaves, masters, employees, employers, husbands, wives, and yes, parents and children.
As followers there is something about us respecting those in authority that is supposed to teach us something. God doesn’t make it optional.
Normal, orthodox theologians acknowledge that there’s a time to engage in civil disobedience. For instance, if someone in authority asks you to do something contrary to God’s law or forbids something God’s law commands, we are called to follow the higher authority. Notice here, however, that we’re still under authority.
In terms of being kids honoring our parents, there are principles we can live by that apply elsewhere, too.
- We should pray for them.
- We can extend mercy and patience.
- We can teach our children to extend this respect, too.
- We can choose to speak kindly of them and to them.
- We can call out sin or otherwise call them to account. Just because they’re our parents doesn’t mean we aren’t still called to be ministers of reconciliation.
- We can be purposeful about appreciating successes and good things.
- We can seek to build up rather than tear down, directly or indirectly.
- We can forgive.

The bottom line

To be sure, I am no counselor. I am not saying that there might not be a time for someone to separate from parents and never see them again. But notice that many of the principles we just laid out we can do from afar, even if we never speak directly to them ever again. And it doesn’t take much imagination to see that these principles would apply, in large part, to how we treat each other, the leaders of a country, your significant other, etc.

AND this should give us pause to look inward at our own followership, our own pride and rebellion. Remember, the Bible repeatedly says that leaders and teachers and those with the responsibility of authority will be held to higher account. At the end of the day, this boils down to who we trust to administer that justice. God has spoken clearly, and the question is what are we going to do about it?

Perhaps we can remember, like we talked about the last couple days, trust that even the King of the universe, Jesus himself, the Logos eternally begotten of the Father in whom and through whom all things were made modeled being a follower even while he Himself is the ultimate leader.

Wisdom:

Passage: Psalm 128-129
Translation: LEB (Lexham English Bible)
Verses: 14
Words: ~230

Passage: Proverbs 13:1
Translation: LEB (Lexham English Bible)
Verses: 1
Words: ~16

Love you!

-R

ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.

Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.

Sources and resources:

Thank you for supporting this ministry should you choose to use the Amazon affiliate links below.

Not used today, but stuff I like:

D. A. Carson, For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God’s Word., vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998).

Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993). <—this, and it’s OT companion, are great commentaries if you like something more than a study Bible and less than a set of 66 books — they add a lot of interesting details. Keener’s a killer apologist, too.

The Story of Reality, Greg Koukl — Love this book. A killer intro to the Christian worldview that is philosophically and theologically sound while being accessible to all readers.

#944: Ephesians 5-6 | Honoring the dishonorable | Psalms 128-129 | Proverbs 13:1