Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Should You Still Honor Your Parents? | Torah | Exodus 20:12, 21:17

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

Can you still honor your father and mother as an adult? What if you have a broken family? What does the fifth commandment reveal about God? In today's episode, Jensen discusses the fifth commandment and God's vision for the family. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Passages: Exodus 20:12, 21:17 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair, and right now we're going through Exodus. My husband and I often talk about one of the moments and are not so distant future that we are dreading. We love our son, Jude. We love the way that he smiles at us when we walk into a room. We even love when he's really sad and reaches out for us. It's really sad, but it's really sweet. And so the idea that one day Jude will look at me and actively choose to disobey me or say something mean to me or reject a hug or refuse to tell me about his day at school, well, that makes me really sad.

And it makes me look back on my childhood and want to make my mom a cake and buy her a bouquet of flowers and tell her how sorry I am for every time I wasn't kind and didn't take time to tell her about my day. mostly becoming a parent has made me want to know my parents to show them that I respect them, that I want to learn from them still, and that I'm thankful to have them in my life. But it's also made me think a lot about how Sam and I are building our own little family and that we want Jude to grow up knowing he's safe and loved by his family and most importantly by Jesus. But when it comes to parents and being a parent, I know that for many of you, this is a heavy topic. Maybe you've lost a parent recently. Some of you have fractured relationships with your parents or with your children.

Some of you long to be parents and have struggled to have children of your own. Maybe you're in the middle of watching a parent's memory fade, and the person you've loved for so long is disappearing fast. Deep inside all of us, we long for a relationship with our families, our parents, that is whole and healed and thriving. But so often, that's difficult. And so when we read the Fifth Commandment to honor your father and mother, it can elicit a lot of different reactions. It impacts and affects people in incredibly different ways because we all have

incredibly different relationships with our parents. And that's why today, instead of talking through exactly what it looks like to honor your parents in every situation, I want to instead think about what we learn about who God is and what his vision for his kingdom might be from this commandment. Now, I remember growing up hearing this commandment and thinking it was just in the Bible so my mom and dad could use it as ammunition whenever they needed me to obey or listen to what they were saying. It felt more like a nuisance to my life. Like God snuck that one in there and now I have to eat my green beans and brush my teeth and make my bed and get home by 10 p.m. But honor your father and mother, it isn't just for kids living under their parents' roof. It's also for

freshly moved out adult children building a new kind of relationship with their parents. It's for new parents learning how to navigate the grandparent-grandchild dynamics. It's for children caring for the physical needs of their elderly parents. We have to remember that the culture we live in is very different than the one that the Israelites lived in when they got this commandment. See, their family communities looked different than ours. Oftentimes, there were many generations living under one household. And it was within these households that the family was able to make a living off the land, educate their children, and bring them up with the knowledge of their God. And so this command to honor your mother and father was one that, when followed, would have

permeated the culture of the household and enabled it to thrive socially, economically, and spiritually. It's much bigger than a command to obey for obedience sake. In God's command to honor our parents in all stages of life, we see a picture of God's desire for deep relationship, sacrificial care, and a community that is rooted in love, respect, and sacrifice. The Fifth Commandment lays out a way of living within God's kingdom that brings about human flourishing. See, the Fifth Commandment is the only commandment that also comes with promise. We read that we are to honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Now, this isn't saying that honoring your mother and father will make you live to 105. What it is saying is that honoring your mother and father, showing them respect, listening to their wisdom, will give you a life of day. filled with God's presence. Now, when the Israelites lived in this way, in their communities, they lived in such a way that brought human flourishing to their household. And while we no longer live in households like this, Paul explains how this commandment and its vision for a flourishing family extends beyond this Old Testament context in Ephesion 6. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is a good. This is a lot. This is a lot of

This is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. See, Paul is talking to a church in Ephesus that would have had Gentile members. So the land here, it doesn't refer to the promised land of the ancient Israelites, but it refers to an eternal land, the kingdom of God. See, before we get confused, Paul is not saying that action or obedience is what leads to eternal life or salvation. What he is saying is that those who are saved, who have given their allegiance to Christ, will live in such a way that it is evident that they are a part of the eternal kingdom of God. And in this instance, living as a part of the kingdom of God means honoring your father and mother. And Paul continues by speaking directly to the father.

He says, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. See, Paul is laying out what it looks like to be a member of a family in the kingdom of God. And what he is saying is radical. In the patriarchal community of the Greco-Roman world, the father would have had absolute power and dominion over his family. His word goes, his morality rules. He even had the power over whether his newborn children would live or die. And yet here, Paul directly commands the father to deal gently with. his children, to discipline them and instruct them in the way of the Lord. The father is to submit himself to the Lord, and in doing so, we see a family structure that is built not on discord or

dominance, but on discipleship. God's vision for the family is to be one that is built on the love of Christ. And it is through the love of Christ that children would honor their parents as their parents sought out the good of their children as members of the kingdom of God. It should be our hope that we could build families that look like this. And even so, we have to leave room to recognize that we live in a fallen and broken world. And this is not always a possible reality. And yet, no matter what stage we are in life or what our relationship with our parents look like, we can look at this command and find hope.

In it, we see that we follow a God who values rich community. We follow a God who expects those in power to wield it humbly for the good of those under their authority. We follow a God who is building a kingdom, where one day his people will be able to live free from the burden of sin, free from fractured relationships, free from discord and death. We will live in a world where we find refuge and safety in the family of God as sons and daughters of a good and righteous king. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes, and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help encourage you in the middle of the work week and bring you deeper in your walk with Jesus.

Thanks for listening.