“Honor your father and mother.” The first thing you must see is what does it mean to “honor.” The description given is to revere, to treat as valuable and precious, to esteem and to respect. From your very beginning it has been wrong for you to be disobedient to your parents. Your parents brought you into this life, raising you as best as they knew how. In the Mosaic Law there was punishment for disobedience. If a child was rebellious, he could be put to death; “Anyone who attacks his father or his mother must be put to death.” Exodus 21:15. If everyone obeys this command, there will not be the problems and disrespect you see in families in the world today. To put it another way, in his book, “Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home and Work,” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “We are to obey our parents and honor them and respect them because it is a part of our obedience to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
The promise is two-fold. First, it is “that it may go well with you.” Originally, this would have been for the Israelites as they went into the Promise Land that they would have prosperity. Today, parents desire for their children is to have a better life then they did. In his book, “The College Press NIV Commentary: Galatians and Ephesians,” Kenny Boles wrote, “Respectful, obedient children will normally become productive, successful adults.”
Second, it is “that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” Again, by obedience in the Old Testament Mosaic Law you would not suffer the death penalty. Today, it simply would mean in general you would have a happier, healthy life. Gareth L. Reese, in “Paul’s Prison Epistles,” depicts a mental contrast between disobedience and obeying, “Disobedient children usually do not realize how far-reaching the consequences of their disobedience can be. In defiance of his parents, a ten-year-old takes up smoking—and fifty years later his life is cut short by emphysema or cancer. A teen-age rebel illegally gets a supply of booze – and dies in a flaming crash on the highway. Countless people who disregard the authority of parents and God will also disregard the rules of health. We are told the average life span is inching upward because of the advances in medical science. It might increase even more rapidly if everyone would just listen to Mom and Dad.”
THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT HOW YOU ARE OBEYING YOUR PARENTS AND HOW YOUR CHILDREN ARE OBEYING YOU!!!