And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
— Exodus 21:17
Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my sabbaths: I am the LORD your God.
— Leviticus 19:3
Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD.
— Leviticus 19:32
Bathsheba therefore went unto king Solomon, to speak unto him for Adonijah. And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king’s mother; and she sat on his right hand.
— 1 Kings 2:19
My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.
— Proverbs 1:8-9
A fool despiseth his father’s instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent.
— Proverbs 15:5
Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old. Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.
— Proverbs 23:22-25
A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?
— Malachi 1:6
Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
— Ephesians 6:1-3
Honoring Father and Mother, by Thomas Watson. The following contains an excerpt from his work.
Honour thy father and thy mother.—Exodus 20:12a
Exhortation: First Branch. Doth God command, “Honour thy father and thy mother”? Then let it exhort children to put this great duty into practice; be living commentaries upon this commandment. Honor and reverence your parents: not only obey their commands, but submit to their rebukes, (for) you cannot honor your Father in heaven unless you honor your earthly parents. To deny obedience to parents entails God’s judgments upon children: “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it” (Pro 30:17). Eli’s two disobedient sons were slain (1Sa 4:11). God made a law that the rebellious son should be stoned—the same death the blasphemer had (Lev 24:14). “If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother…then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city…and all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die” (Deu 21:18, 19, 21). A father once complained, “Never had a father a worse son than I have.” “Yes,” said the son, “my grandfather had”—a prodigy of impudence that can hardly (be) paralleled…Disobedient children stand in the place where all God’s arrows fly.
Second Branch. Let parents so carry it,47 as they may gain honor from their children.
Question: How may parents so carry towards their children that their children may willingly pay the debt of honor and reverence to their parents? Answer: If you would have your children honor you,
1. Be careful to bring them up in the fear and nurture of the Lord: “Bring them up in the admonition of the Lord” (Eph 6:4). You conveyed the plague of sin to them; therefore, endeavor to get them healed and sanctified. Austin48 saith his mother Monica travailed more for his spiritual birth than his natural. Timothy’s mother instructed him from a child (2Ti 3:15). She did not only give him her breastmilk, but “the sincere milk of the word” (1Pe 2:2). Season your children with good principles betimes, that they may, with Obadiah, “fear the Lord from their youth” (1Ki 18:12). When parents instruct not their children, they seldom prove blessings…Children are young plants which you must be continually watering with good instruction: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Pro 22:6). The more your children fear God, the more they will honor you.
2. If you would have your children honor you, keep up parental authority over your children. Be kind, but do not cocker49 them; if you let them get too much ahead, they will contemn you instead of honoring you. The rod of discipline must not be withheld: “Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell” (Pro 23:14). A child indulged and humored in wickedness will be a thorn in the parents’ eye. David cockered Adonijah: “His father had not displeased him at any time, in saying, Why hast thou done so?” (1Ki 1:6). And afterwards, he was a grief of heart to his father and was false to the crown (1Ki 1:7, 9). Keep up your authority, and you keep up your honor.
3. Provide for your children what is fitting both in their minority and when they come to maturity. “The children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children” (2Co 12:14). They are your own flesh, and, as the apostle saith, “No man ever yet hated his own flesh” (Eph 5:29). The parents’ bountifulness will cause dutifulness in the child. If you pour water into a pump, the pump will send water again out freely; so, if parents pour in something of their estate to their children, children (if ingenuous) will pour out obedience again to their parents.
4. When your children are grown up, put them to some lawful calling, wherein they may serve their generation. And it is good to consult the natural genius50 and inclination of a child. Forced callings do as ill, sometimes, as forced matches.51 To let a child be out of a calling is to expose him to temptation…A child out of a calling is like fallow-ground; and what can you expect should grow up but weeds of disobedience?
5. Carry it lovingly to your children. In all your counsels and commands, let them read love. Love will command honor: and how can a parent but love the child who is his living picture, nay, part of himself? The child is the father in the second edition.
6. Carry it prudently towards your children. A great point of prudence is when a parent doth not provoke his children to wrath: “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Col 3:21).
Question: How many ways may a parent provoke his children to wrath? Answer: 1. By giving them opprobrious52 terms. “Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman” (1Sa 20:30), said Saul to his son Jonathan. Some parents use imprecations53 and curses to their children: this is to provoke them to wrath. Would you have God bless your children, and do you curse them?
2. Parents provoke children to wrath when they strike their children without a cause or when the correction exceeds the fault. This is to be a tyrant rather than a father. Saul cast a javelin at his son to smite him, and his son was provoked to anger: “So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger” (1Sa 20:33-34)…
4. When parents carry it unequally towards their children, showing more kindness to one than to another. This sometimes breeds bad blood. Though a parent hath a greater love for one child, discretion should guide affection that he should not show more love to one than to another. Jacob showed more love to Joseph than all his children, and what did it procure but envy of his brethren: “Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, and when his brethren saw that, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him” (Gen 37:3-4).
5. When a parent doth anything which is sordid and unworthy, that which casts disgrace upon himself and his family—as to cozen54 or take a false oath. This is to provoke the child to wrath. As the child should honor his father, the father should not dishonor the child.
6. When parents lay such commands upon their children as their children cannot perform without wronging their conscience. Saul commanded his son Jonathan to bring David to him: “Fetch him unto me, for he shall surely die” (1Sa 20:31). Jonathan could not do this with a good conscience but was provoked to anger: “Jonathan rose from the table in fierce anger” (1Sa 20:34). Now, the reason parents should show their prudence in not provoking their children to wrath is set down: “Lest they be discouraged” (Col 3:21)…
7. If you would have honor from your children, pray much for them. Not only lay up a portion for them but lay up a stock of prayer for them…Pray that your children may be preserved from the contagion of the times; pray that as your children bear your images in their faces, they may bear God’s image in their hearts; pray they may be instruments and vessels of glory. This may be one fruit of prayer—that the child may honor a praying parent.
8. Encourage that which you see good and commendable in your children. Commending that which is good in your children makes them more in love with virtuous actions; and it is like the watering of plants, which makes them grow more. Some parents discourage the good they see in their children, and nip virtue in the bud and help damn their children’s souls. They have their children’s curses.
9. If you would have honor from your children, set them a good example. It makes children despise their parents when the parents live in a contradiction to their own precepts: when they bid their children be sober, yet they themselves will be drunk; they bid their children fear God yet are themselves loose in their lives. Oh! If you would have your children honor you, teach them by a holy example. A father is a looking glass by which the child often dresseth himself. Let the glass be clear and not spotted. Parents should observe a good decorum in their whole carriage lest they give occasion to their children to say to them…as a son once said to his father, “If I have done evil, I have learned it of you.”
If we are to honor our fathers on earth, then much more our Father in heaven: “If then I be a father, where is my honour?” (Mal 1:6)—Thomas Watson
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