“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Exodus 20:12
The fifth commandment is not just about obedience, but about shaping our entire approach to relationships and authority. The Ten Commandments offers a guide to shift from a modern, individualistic mindset to one that values responsibility, legacy, and respect for divinely-appointed authority. In this week’s Sunday message, Pastor Ryan Schlachter encourages us that honoring our parents, even when it’s difficult, is a pathway to personal growth, societal stability, and spiritual maturity. It’s a call to reflect on how our family dynamics shape our broader worldview and our relationship with God.
What is the context?
Israel has come out of 400 years of slavery, meaning that their view of authority as modeled by Pharaoh is oppressive by nature
There are no Bibles or written accounts of the commandments in homes, but the laws of God are passed down directly from parents to their children.
The role and prominence of parents also rests in the fact that parents are the first introduction to what authority looks like for their children.
Honoring our mother and father matters because…
It Helps Us Function in God’s Design
When you honor your mother and father, you're practicing on a smaller scale what it means to recognize and reflect God's glory.
At our core, we were made to be a relational people.The problem for us today is that we don’t place high value on community and family in the right way.
The home in the Old Testament wasn’t just a family, it was a future, financial security, legacy, and identity.
Honor produces holiness
The honor we show to our parents informs the honor between spouses, with spiritual leaders, and government officials. Most broadly, the apostle Peter charges us, “Honor everyone”.
The call to honor everyone is not calling everyone to be best friends with everyone, to agree with everyone or to be restored to everyone.
Honor Brings Blessing
...so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
(Exodus 20:12)
It’s not so much about the length of your life as much as it is the quality of your life.
Teachable spirit leads to wise decisions and a life marked by wisdom.
Peaceful relational dynamics leads to less stress in life.
A soft and buoyant heart leads to tenderness and gentleness.
If the younger generation stopped honoring the older generation—stopped receiving the wisdom, the stories, the covenant—they would eventually forget who they were.
Additional Resources:
Ephesians 6:1-3
1 Peter 2:17
Dinner Party Questions:
The fifth commandment connects honoring parents to receiving blessings. What kind of blessings do you think can come from this practice?
How might forgiving parents for past hurts be an act of honoring them? What makes this challenging?
In what ways does Jesus' example on the cross inform how we should approach honoring difficult or imperfect parents?
Put It Into Practice:
Identify one way you can show honor to your parents this week, even if it's challenging.
Write a letter (even if you don't send it) expressing gratitude for the positive things your parents did provide, as an exercise in honoring them.
