Honor parents: Understanding the Fifth Commandment in context

Many parents feel entitled to respect from their children. This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents want to be honored, without doing anything to earn honor from their children. The fact of the matter is that honor for parents, with few exceptions, is something to earn from children.

The Fifth Commandment reads in Exodus 20:12 KJV:

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

The commandment to honor parents basically means don't dishonor your parents, as specified elsewhere in the Law. That basically means don't strike or physically attack your parents (see also Exod. 21:15), don't curse your parents with airborne gaslighting (see also Lev. 20:9), and don't commit moral crimes while blaming parents (see also Deut. 21:18-21). Apart from those narrow protections, parents need to earn honor from their children. It is acceptable to shun your parents if they were abusive towards you.

The best way to understand the Fifth Commandment in the context of childhood is the commandment not to strike out at your parents. Children can use their parents for pretty much anything that the child wants, with parents being hired bondservants called to serve their children. But, parents shouldn't encourage children striking out at them. When children strike out at you as the parent, you should get out the acronym of righteous wailing. Parents should cry out loud when their children strike out at them. You may find that your child just wants to be heard, and doesn't take advantage of tears. However, children should not be encouraged to strike out at their parents.

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. This word ultimately refers to 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 just as they would to God, from beneath yet from above, expecting absolutely nothing in return. See also Matt. 22:35-40; 25:31-46.

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 was 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. The 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 youe 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 may not have gotten along with the women of the church, but he sure loved children, and even took in a few orphaned children during his time as a deacon.

Respect for parents was a thing in biblical times. However, respect for children meant closeness to parents, not fear of parents. For the first 6 years of childhood, children were in constant closeness to mothers, meaning that wherever mothers went, so did her child. For the first 2 years of childhood, children were constantly held by mothers, either in her loving arms, or on mom's back in a papoose bag. Between ages 2-6, children ranged next to mothers, following mom from room to room, not allowing mom out of their line of sight, morbidly fearing that mom would "go away and never come back". Whenever children cried, mothers cooed at children before picking them up, and then from there, she diagnosed the child's needs and met them. Maybe the child was tired. Maybe the child was hungry. Maybe the child needed mom's milk. Maybe the child needed mom, period. When mothers and children under age 6 were out and about, mothers wrapped up children next to her bosom in swaddling blankets, with the swaddling blankets - and the child with them - being tucked underneath the loose-fitting, revealing dress worn by mothers that resembled an apron. Come nightfall, children co-slept next to mothers in skin-on-skin format, with this skin-on-skin co-sleeping warmth happening every night, until the onset of puberty, which is when children wanted their own place to sleep. Children in biblical times went naked wherever they went, with mothers also going naked within the confines of the family home/ This birth nudity setup helped facilitate easy skin-on-skin sustaining warmth, with skin-on-skin friction happening every time a child was picked up.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke their children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them be cast forever 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!