“‘Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” - Deuteronomy 5:16 Genre and Context Impact Interpretation and Meaning The fifth commandment functions as the connective tissue between love God and love People. How is honoring our father and mother necessary in the pursuit of loving God? God designed the parent-child relationship to be a model of the God-individual relationship. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. - Psalm 103:13 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. - Proverbs 3:12 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! - Matthew 7:11 Your parenting matters, but God is bigger than your parenting. “Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. - Luke 12:7 The best way to prepare your kids for a relationship with Jesus is by personally living out your relationship with Jesus. God created the parent-child relationship as a building block to a God-honoring society. “...your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. - Deuteronomy 5:16b “25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. - Luke 14:25-26 “15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’” - Luke 14:15-24 “5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ Mark 7:5-7 “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine 37 and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” - Luke 23:35-36 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” - Matthew 10:37 Jesus is not canceling the 5th commandment, but He IS saying we should love Him more than anyone or anything else. Who has your ultimate allegiance? The end-goal of ‘Christian parenting’ should not be cling to me but ‘cling to Him.’ There’s a difference between honoring and obeying: