Posted on April 27, 2009 - by bj

To honor our parents……..

So, lately i’ve been thinking about what it means to honor our parents. i think alot of times, people translate the word honor as meaning “obey.” And i disagree with that. Yes, we are called to obey our parents, but Ephesians 6 says ”Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” So there is a difference in merely obeying your parents and obeying them in the Lord. It seems as though this scripture is saying two things: 1) We should obey our parents, assuming they are followers of Christ and 2) If they are not, our decision to obey must be in line with His word. One thing i don’t know is if the word “children” is refering to certain aged individuals (as in a young child) or children of God, which would be all Christians. However, i don’t know how relevant that is to understanding what this means. Anyway, as i stated earlier, i don’t think that honor=obey. For example, if you are a believer and your mom or dad was not and you obeyed everything they commanded of you, there would clearly be some decisions on your part that were in conflict with the word of God…..b/c your parents aren’t Christ-centered. If your mom or dad said to go steal money for them to go buy drugs and you did that, you would be obeying them, but not honoring them or yourself b/c that isn’t what’s best for them and you would be breaking a commandment and the law. Basically what this translates to is that there could possibly be times that we have to disobey our parents in order to honor them. There will be times that we disobey them to “obey them in the Lord.” To honor them is to love them as Christ does, and to act as Christ would. We have to be bold and keep our faith.

i live a different life than my parents. i have hope and faith in Christ to work through me and others to reveal himself to them….i see this at work on a daily basis through our conversations, and when i’m able to spend time with them at home and it’s very exciting. But there have been many situations that required the “flipping over of a table, or two.” Sometimes we have to be bold and take a stand for what we know is right. And all of this is up for interpretation……  what do you guys think about this issue (want to add anything?)