"Honor thy parents": Understanding the Fifth Commandment in context

Most parents want to be honored. Most American parents feel entitled of honor from their children. This leads to parents demanding that they get respect from their children in an entitled way. The fact of the matter is that the Fifth Commandment is clarified by the subsequent parent protection laws in the Bible that protect parents from elder abuse.

It says in Exodus 20:12 KJV:

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

This commandment only applies to young adults living away from home, with the honor for parents being thanksgiving for all of the warm memories of being pampered and coddled by parents. Some children were abused by their parents, in which case they could shun their parents. Adult children had a bare minimum in terms of respect for parents - don't gaslight them to send them places (see Lev 20:9), don't beat them up (see Exod. 21:15), and don't commit crimes in their name (see Deut. 21:18-21). "Don't commit crimes in their name" refers to a crime spree that reflects on parents. As long as you didn't exact vengeance on parents in these three ways, you were not dishonoring your parents just by disagreeing with them on how they raised you. 

The Fifth Commandment is repeated in 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 submission of parents. Children are to rest securely in the sacrifice of parents, just as parent believers rest securely in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul to lift up the customary law that commands a secure attachment between parents and children in the family home. This secure attachment comes from parent submission, where parents are to submit to their children as their enemy, from beneath yet from above, expecting absolutely nothing in return.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers to damages or 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, stemming 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, but not limited to, any punishments, reprimands, or other controlling demeanor towards children. 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 your child hostage merely for things that they did wrong, thereby treating your child as a quartered slave. Paul here was lifting up the Law in order to convict a group of Greek Christian parents who brought their pagan custom of spanking or punishing their children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punishment of a child. Indeed, Greco-Roman parents used the scourge of cords on their children, but NOT the Christians among them - the Early Christians shunned the scourge of cords.

Respect for parents was a concept in parenting. However, parents had to earn everything except the most basic types of respect. Children respected their parents by way of closeness with parents. For the first 6 years of a child's life, the child was in constant closeness with mothers, meaning wherever the mother went, so did the child. The Early Christians practiced birth nudity, where mother and child were in the nude next to each other, in skin-on-skin closeness and intimacy. When children cried, mothers cooed and picked up their children, then holding the child close to her bosom in mammary closeness. This closeness with mothers in children's formative years prepared children, in later years, to respect both their father and their mother.

Honoring parents is a place a child comes to once they live away from parents as a young adult. When children were baptized in the Early Church as adults, they bowed down to their parents, giving them reverence and thanks for all the fond memories of being pampered. Some young adults who were abused instead shunned their parents, and even sought to have them excommunicated for their abusive acts, and that was okay as well, as long as they didn't gaslight their parents to send them places, beat their parents, or commit crimes in their name. Most children in the Early Church grew up to revere and honor their parents. However, dependent children did not have to honor their parents at all, but they often related to their parents in a state of sustaining closeness. This sustaining closeness with mothers is how children came to honor and revere their parents. 

I do honor my parents, but with strings attached. I forgive my parents for abusing me, but I never will forget how I was harmed by their entitled outbursts towards me. I am ANGRY at parents due to the fact that I was abused by parents. I honor my own parents who are the implied type. My parents had a change of heart around my 16th birthday. I was abused by way of forced time-out, with an occasional disciplinary spanking of a few swats to a clothed bottom. That was enough to make me ANGRY at parents for life.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them forever be 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 day and night forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!