Honor parents: Understanding the Fifth Commandment in context

Many parents want to be respected. Better put, most parents demand respect, and feel entitled to respect and honor. The fact of the matter is, however, is that honor from your child, apart from the bare minimum, is earned, not bestowed by your child on a silver platter.

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.

For the most part, honor for parents is something that parents earn. The bare minimum in terms of honoring parents is not beating them (see Exod. 21:15), imposing a gaslighting curse in order to send them places (see Lev. 20:9), or committing a spree of crimes in their name (see Deut. 21:18-21). Every single offense you commit as a Christian reflects on your mother. Apart from that narrow standard of parent protection, respect and honor for parents was seen as something parents earned from their children. 

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 surrender to parents comes with strings attached on the part of parents, meaning children could issue righteous demands for parents to comply with, usually when parents weren't doing their fair share around the house.

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 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 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 and punishing children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punishment of a child in his secular writings. Paul indeed didn't get along with women, but he sure loved children, and took in orphaned children. Indeed, Greco-Roman fathers used the scourge of cords on their children, but NOT the Christians among them - the Early Christians were hated largely due to being "too soft" on their children.

What motivated children to honor their parents? Children were motivated to honor their parents by way of a secure attachment. For the first 6 years of a child's life, children were in constant closeness to mothers, meaning that wherever mothers 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. Whenever a child cried, mothers swooped in to the rescue, cooing at the child before picking them up, then holding the child close to mothers in skin-on-skin mammary closeness. Come nightfall, children co-slept next to mothers in skin-on-skin format. Co-sleeping ended when a child reached the onset of puberty, when children wanted their own place to sleep. Respect for parents, during childhood, was about closeness and intimacy with parents, especially mothers.

Parents were only honored by their children once the child reached adulthood. Respect for parents, as an adult, was thanksgiving for being pampered and coddled for the entirety of their childhood. At the child's baptism, they usually bowed down to their parents in submission, with the parents earning the reverence and respect from their children. Sometimes, children resented their parents, due to child abuse, and then parents were usually taken before the council and then excommunicated for offending against a child. However, most children in biblical times had something to thank their parents for. 

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke your 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!