God’s Image Study • Commandment 5: Father and Mother
The commandment names both father and mother. Our next question concerns what we are instructed to give them: honor.
What does that word require of us? How does it become visible in our response to those named?
Giving Weight to the Relationship
The Hebrew command in Exodus 20:12 is כַּבֵּד — kabbēd, from the root כבד, associated with weight and heaviness and also used for honoring. In this command, its sense is to honor.
Giving weight to someone’s place in our lives helps us consider the instruction: their significance should be reflected in how we treat them. Hebrew word reference: H3513.
Both father and mother receive that instruction’s attention. We should carry both forward as we examine the relationships Scripture develops.
Honor Includes Listening
Proverbs 6:20–23 places the father’s commandment beside the mother’s teaching. The son is instructed to keep them close. Their guidance accompanies walking, sleeping, and waking; instruction is connected with light and the way of life. Read Proverbs 6:20–23.
This gives substance to honor. We can speak respectfully while dismissing the instruction being offered. The passage asks us to receive, remember, and walk with what has been taught.
Within our wider study, this brings us back to voice. Whose teaching do we attend to? What do we preserve within us? Does what we claim to value guide our conduct?
Honor Includes Care
Jesus makes the responsibility concrete when addressing Corban.
He describes someone declaring that resources which could benefit a father or mother are devoted to God. The tradition then prevents further help for the parents. Jesus identifies this as setting aside God’s command through human tradition. Read Mark 7:9–13.
The claim sounds religious, yet its effect is to withhold care.
This requires us to examine what our explanations produce. Does my claim of devotion fulfill the responsibility God gives, or provide an excuse to avoid it?
Honor and Allegiance Belong Together
Jesus also says that whoever loves father or mother more than him is not worthy of him. He applies the same examination to love for a son or daughter. Read Matthew 10:37–39.
Placed alongside his defense of parental care, this asks us to preserve both responsibilities: honor the relationship and examine where our deepest allegiance lies.
Family affection must not become a reason to abandon faithfulness. Equally, religious language must not become a reason to neglect care.
Carrying the Meaning Forward
As we continue toward the spiritual relationships developed in our Bridegroom and Bride Study, these observations remain important.
Honor involves recognition expressed through response: listening, receiving instruction, and acting faithfully toward the relationship. We will follow how those responsibilities connect with Father and Mother, life, and the promise of the given land.
Threads to Follow
Father’s commandment and Mother’s teaching: Examine their relationship to lamp, light, and life.
Christ and Jerusalem: Revisit the fatherhood and motherhood passages alongside our previous study.
Honor and life: Follow the promise attached to Exodus 20:12.
The books were opened…
🌿 By Maria Emilia
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