Honor to Parents - Humility will curb our impatience.

(Excerpts from Chapter 17 pages 209-223)

No one can despise his father or mother without being guilty of an offense against God. “An inevitable curse threatens all stubborn and disobedient children.” Obedience is the evidence of that honor which children owe to their parents, and is therefore more earnestly enforced. It is likewise more difficult; for the human mind recoils from the idea of subjection, and with difficulty allows itself to be placed under the control of another. Experience shows how rare this virtue is, for do we find one among a thousand that is obedient to his parents?

…parents are to be obeyed, so far only as is consistent with piety to God, which comes first in order.

“I am the Lord thy God, who show mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” Exodus 20:5, 6 …no other commandment but that which enjoins the obedience due by children to their parents is distinguished by a promise.”

The commandment specifies the reverence due those to whom we owe our being…For they are monsters and not men who, petulantly and contumeliously violate the paternal authority. Hence, the Lord orders all who rebel against their parents to be put to death, they being as it were, unworthy of the light in paying no deference to those to whom they are indebted for beholding it.

The honor here referred to consists of three parts, reverence, obedience and gratitude. The first the Lord enforces, when he commands that [he] who curses his father or his mother shall be put to death. In this way he avenges insult and contempt… To the third belongs our Savior’s declaration, that God requires us to do good to our parents (Matt. 15). A promise is added by way of recommendation; the better to remind us how pleasing to God is the submission which is here required.

The whole lies in this: We must consider that long life is promised only in so far as it is a blessing from God, and that it is a blessing only in so far as it is a manifestation of divine favor.

If they instigate us to transgress the law, they deserve not to be regarded as parents, but as strangers attempting to seduce us from our true Father. The same holds in the case of rulers, masters, and superiors of every description.

This one thing ought to be considered by children – that whoever may be your parents, they have been allotted to them by the providence of God, who by his appointment makes children subject to their parents. In all things, therefore, that they may not refuse anything however difficult or disagreeable, that in things indifferent they may give deference to the station which their parents occupy – that they may not put themselves on a footing of equality with their parents, in a way of questioning and debating, or disputing…

Those who show kindness to their parents from whom they derived life, are assured by God, that in this life it will be well with them.

We should look up to those whom the Lord has put over us, and should treat them with honor, obedience, and gratefulness. It follows from this that we are forbidden to detract from their dignity either by contempt, stubbornness, or by ungratefulness.

… Nature itself ought in a way to teach us this. Those who abusively or stubbornly violate parental authority are monsters, not men! Hence the Lord commands that all those disobedient to their parents to be put to death.

But we ought in passing to note that we are bidden to obey our parents only “in the Lord.”

He commands all those to be exterminated who have laid violent hands on their parents…or addressed them in abusive language. The word, kalal, from which the participle used by Moses is derived, not only means to reproach, but also to curse, as well as esteem lightly, and to despise…added by God in Leviticus, “his blood shall be upon him, because he has cursed his father or mother.

Since the duty of all is not to look behind them, that is, not to inquire into the duties of one another, but to submit each to his own duty…

If we are cruelly tormented by a savage…if we are neglected by a sluggish, if in short we are persecuted for righteousness’ sake by an impious and sacrilegious prince, let us first call up the remembrance of our faults, which doubtless the Lord is chastising by such scourges. In this way humility will curb our impatience.