God’s Ten Rules for Living (8)

Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:12
 
Key Verse: Honor your father and mother (Exodus 20:12).
 

Ruth honoring Naomi

Meditation: Commandment Five makes the transition from relation to God to our relationship with our neighbor. The commandments in themselves cannot empower our actions; they can only guide our actions. Commandments cannot make us do the right things. Right relationships with our neighbor follow a prior personal relationship to God.
 

The Prodigal son coming home.

God places our relationship to our parents in top priority. The concept of both parents being featured here departs from that culture’s emphasis on male dominance. The word honor in the Bible is reserved for God, meaning to venerate or revere. Yet in this commandment God Himself consents to share that kind of honor with parents.
 
Some commentators suggest that God is extending to parents the distinctive role of being go-betweens for Him. Serving as God’s bridge to children gives parents great responsibility and significance. From parents children learn their understanding of God. Someone has said “Parents serve as skylights through which we gain our first glimpse God.” We learn reverence and acceptance and unconditional love. In  the context of family we discover the significance of others as well our own self-worth.
 
Thought for the Day: The family is God’s centerpiece for society.