The First Commandment with Promise

"Honor your father and your mother

that your days may be long upon the land

which the Lord your God is giving you."

Remember the old Bill Cosby routine about parenthood? "Boy, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!" Jokingly we perpetuate the idea that if a child doesn't behave, we will just put an end to their miserable existence and start over with a new model. But the law of God required all children to be well behaved, obedient, and honorable toward their parents...or else. There is even a place in the law that allows for the destruction of a rebellious and willfully unrepentant child. Just bring that unruly kid to the elders at the gates of the city and stone him.

Of course, there's no Biblical evidence that it was ever done. But it could have happened; the law provided for that eventuality. And if it did, I'm certain it was the very last straw, the very ultimate measure of discipline employed by a parent who had done everything else as they were supposed to do. This was the final resort. I can imagine a Word-wise woman holding the scroll open to that passage of Scripture and telling her couch-potato, video-game junkie teenager, "Boy, you do what I tell you, or your growin' up days are over. The Bible says so!"

There is certainly in the Bible that application of the fifth commandment--if you want to survive past childhood, you've got to honor your parents. Thank God we're under grace today, and not under the law.

But there is something further involved there, the God element. In Ephesians 6, Paul calls this commandment the first one with promises attached to it--honor your parents, that it may be well with you, that you may live long on the earth. In the original Decalogue, there is only that promise of long life, but the sermon of Moses in Deuteronomy expands it to include a blessed life as well. Really, life and death are in the hands of God, and it never fails me to think, when I meet someone advanced in years--say, past 90--to actually tell them, "You must have been obedient to your parents." Never yet have they disagreed with my assessment.

My own dad died at age 49 of a stroke following a minor knee reconstruction surgery. In the days when he lay dying in a semi-conscious state, he was heard to mutter these words: "You got to honor your mama." As a child, and as an adult before he was saved, he was very hateful and spiteful toward his mother. Only after his salvation was the relationship really restored, and even then it was sometimes rocky. He became a Christian at age 27, and for nearly 22 years he served the Lord with everything he had, everything that was within him, and he lived with the expectation that Jesus was coming soon. It occurred to us afterward that perhaps he had always known he was not long for this life; that a disobedient childhood had shortened his life expectancy, therefore he did all he could with what he had while he had the chance.