"Honor parents": Understanding the Fifth Commandment in context

Many parents go by the Fifth Commandment to honor your father and mother in America. To most parents, this means that they have a right to demand respect from their children. This is a common mindset amongst American parents. Most American parents want to be honored and respected. However, the Fifth Commandment, nowhere in the Bible, commands blind obedience to parents, nor does the Bible insist that children view parents as authority figures.

It says in Exodus 20:12 KJV:

Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

This commandment is the basis for the parent protection laws. In the 613 Laws of Moses, the first 10 were the basis of the rest of the commandments. There was a reason for the parent protection laws. Some parents were being abused by their adult children. When that happened, broader Hebrew society blamed the victim, saying "well he/she must have learned that behavior from somewhere", meaning Ancient Israel was a first-to-last society, and thus these laws - which already existed elsewhere on the books as theft - were handed down by God to bring justice to parent victims of elder abuse. "Do not strike your parents" means do not repeatedly beat your parents. "Do not curse your parents" means do not attach your parents to an airborne gaslighting thread, which was an endemic form of elder abuse in Ancient Israel. 

The Fifth Commandment is repeated in the New Testament. Even here, the Fifth Commandment does not legislate a moral statute commanding blind obedience to parents. All the Fifth Commandment means in the New Testament is an instatement of parent headship, which is separate from parental authority. Christian attachment parenting is the proper form of biblical parenting, as the Early Church and preceding Jewish society was an attachment parenting society. This attachment parenting setup can be understood by the Christian doctrine of mutual submission, with the burden of proof falling on the parent. See Colossians 3:20-21 KJV:

Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

The Greek root word translated "obey" is υπακουο (Latin: hupakouo) and refers to secure, vulnerable rest in the love and grace of parents. Children are to rest securely in the sacrifice of parents, just as parent believers rest securely in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Parents are to be extensions of Christ in the family home, dutifully and selflessly submitting to children as they would God, expecting absolutely nothing in return, with children resting safely and securely in the wake of the submission of parents. Children are to rest safely and securely in the presence of parents, following mothers especially around like a gosling to a mother goose.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers to damages and offenses, namely the slightest of personal offense perceived by a child, including, but not limited to, the slightest of offensive touch or speech perceived by a child, coming from entitlement. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul, and understood in its original context, as a moral statute prohibiting all forms of punitive parenting, including any punishments or controlling demeanor towards a child. In the Old Testament, punitive parents were put to death by way of bloodletting, after punishing their children one last time. Parents who punished their children were charged with kidnapping, with "kidnapping" being defined under the Law as the slightest of damages or offenses stemming from hostage-taking - child punishment was seen in biblical times as holding a child hostage merely for things they did wrong, thereby treating your child as a quartered slave. Paul here was lifting up this legal context in order to convict a group of Greek Christian parents who brought their pagan custom of spanking and punishing children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, is anti-spanking, and opposes any and all punishment of a child.

The Bible, in context, commands that parents form a secure attachment with children, preferably in the form of policing attachment. A secure attachment is where children rest in the provisions of parents, trusting them in everything, and can tell parents anything. Policing attachment is where children feel so comfortable with parents that they start ordering parents around. Parents in biblical times had a sense of reverent caution for their children, not wanting to make children mad at them. When children rejected parents, parents were very saddened - usually brought to tears - and then parents tried their best to do better next time for their children. Children were regarded as extensions of God in biblical times, and parents were to submit dutifully and selflessly to children as they would to God, fearing the cries of their children as they feared the Lord.

Children, in biblical times, wore absolutely no clothing, at all, until they became adults. Women only wore clothing outside the home, otherwise going in the nude, in order to serve their husbands and their children, separately. Mothers served their children by providing for them nourishment and sustenance, namely breastmilk (until age 3) and skin-to-skin closeness and intimacy, respectively. The core aspect of Christian attachment parenting in the 1st Century was skin-on-skin co-sleeping, where mother and child was fast asleep next to each other in the nude, with children soaking up the rays of skin-to-skin contact. Children went naked for a reason - so that mothers could snuggle them up and cuddle them up in skin-on-skin format when they were crying or upset. The man of the house stood guard next to the mother and child, wielding a rod and staff to whip intruders (meaning NOT children) with. Fathers also forms a secure attachment to their children, but from afar, when they witnessed the warm closeness between mother and child. Usually, the secure attachment that fathers felt for their children was a sexual attachment, usually for daughters, with fathers being instructed by Early Christian leadership to follow their sexual thoughts about their children to the end using masturbatory fantasy. This led to a closer relationship between father and child. Daughters were also attracted to fathers, and sons to mothers, up until the child hit puberty, creating a mutually unrequited sexual dynamic in the home between parent and child. Mothers rarely were attracted to their children, or any children for that matter, and so mothers were the more egalitarian nurturers, and children wanted their mothers more than their fathers. This is how parenting went in biblical times.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them be forever cast into the lake of fire and burning sulfur, which is the second death prepared for Satan and his accomplices! Let them descend into the abyss which is the ever-burning Hell of fire and torment, suffering God's Wrath forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!