Forgotten Commandments

While there is discussion among many about what is and is not applicable from the Old Testament laws, we're all pretty much agreed that the "Big Ten" are universal. You know those. The Decalogue. The Ten Commandments. Now those apply to everyone. I mean, sure, no one keeps them perfectly, but we're still pretty much agreed about them, right? Or are we?

Well, we're all pretty sure about murder and adultery. Bad. Well, most of us are sure about murder and adultery. Stealing is certainly a sin unless the government does it to take from one group to give to another. But as long as we don't call that "stealing", it's not, right? Because we're all pretty sure stealing is bad. And making idols ... that's definitely not a good thing. Of course, since modern day idols are much more subtle -- power, money, and so on -- we might find we're on the wrong side of that one at times, but mostly we still understand "idolatry" to be a sin. That whole "you shall not bear false witness" thing we're pretty sure about, too, until we start examining it closely. I mean, is that a prohibition against all lying? If a Christian hid a Jew from the Nazis in World War II Germany and lied about it, was that good or bad? Rahab lied about the spies and was commended for it. So that gets a little hazy. But, yeah, we're opposed to lying in general. Taking the name of the Lord in vain? I don't know. I mean, how bad can words be? Maybe that's not so universal. And, look, isn't covetousness the mainstay of capitalism? Just about. But if you call it "covetousness", we're still opposed to it.

There are two that, in my opinion, have been essentially ruled out in modern society. These aren't merely questionable. They can, in fact, be objectionable. The first obvious one is the Sabbath rule. I mean, look, didn't Jesus say, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27)? Doesn't that mean that the Sabbath is terminated? Of course, if you think that one through, it does not. It merely means that the Sabbath was made for the benefit of mankind. That doesn't mean that it is no longer in effect, as if those things God does that benefit Man are no longer of benefit. So most will point to Sunday as the "Christian Sabbath". And that's all well and good as long as we don't think in terms of "Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work ..." (Exo 20:9-10). No work on the Sabbath. That's a little tough. On the other hand, it's almost sickening to hear of church folk who go out to lunch on Sunday after church and refuse to tip the waiter or waitress because "They shouldn't be working; it's the Sabbath, you know!" Someone somewhere is missing the whole point. Mostly.

The one that most catches my attention these days, however, is the other forgotten commandment. "Honor your father and your mother" (Exo 20:12). Paul pointed out (and, therefore, confirmed that it was still in effect) that it was "the first commandment with a promise" (Eph 6:2). It's a fairly straightforward command. Nothing too flowery or too obscure. "Honor your father and your mother." What could be more clear? Yet, today, not only is it not done, but it is often not encouraged. We shouldn't, for instance, honor bad parents. And while there is no "age clause", no indication that parents cease to be parents when we become adults and, as such, no longer need to be honored, that's the standard view. Adult children have no need to honor their parents. They are obligated, instead, to do what's right for themselves, to do what they feel they should, to seek their own path.

At a church I attended awhile back, the pastor asked the congregation to pray for two teenage girls in the church. They wanted to go on the youth mission trip, but their parents wouldn't let them. "Please pray that they can raise the money to go." I contacted the pastor. "Pastor, what about 'honor your mother and father'?" "Oh, don't be ridiculous," he told me. "They're both 18 and feel led to go, so they aren't required to concern themselves with what their parents say." You see? "Honor your father and your mother" only goes so far ... and the cutoff for that distance is getting shorter and shorter. Age, quality of parents, the perceived wisdom and capability of their instructions, whether or not the kid wants to go along with it, these things can easily serve to eliminate a commandment. And by the time the parents are old and need the assistance of their adult children, you can be fairly sure that in most cases they're going to be carted off to an old-folks home against their will because it's too much work to take care of them and honoring your father and your mother at that age is completely irrelevant.

I would beg to differ. I would suggest that the Bible offers no cutoff. It could be that "obey" is a command to children (Eph 6:1), but "honor" is not. What does it mean to honor your father and your mother? How would that look? Mere obedience? I don't think so. How, for instance, would children of "bad parents" honor their parents without simply nullifying God's command? How would a daughter whose father abuses her honor her father without submitting to the abuse? Is it honoring to shuffle off aging parents to a home because we don't want the hassle of caring for them? (Please note: That is a specific scenario. I understand that some of the needs of the aged are beyond the capacity of their children to care for, and I understand that there are even some parents who would prefer to go to a home to avoid being a burden to their children. These are not the cases in question.)

John wrote a definition of sin. "Sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4). The Law is, therefore, eternally significant. One of the clearest commands in all of Scripture is "Honor your father and your mother." Little ambiguity there. And while the outworking of that command may get confusing at times, it is still a command of the Decalogue, the "Big Ten", the Ten Commandments. It would seem to me that finding ways to avoid obeying this command would tend more toward the "lawlessness" side rather than the right side. How do you honor your parents? Or do you?