Pentecost Week 13 - The Fifth Commandment

Christ Church Elders
21 hours ago
3 min read

Scripture Reading

*Explain the context: “This week, we will continue to read about God giving Israel his instructions at Mt. Sinai after God had freed them from Egypt.”

Exodus 20:12

Big Idea (For Parents)

We honor and submit to God in large part by honoring and submitting to God’s appointed human authorities.

Family Reflection

(Read aloud or summarize)

After giving three negative commandments addressing three types of idolatry, God gives two positive commandments which will help his people not commit those idolatries. The second of them is this week’s text, the Fifth Commandment, about honoring your father and mother.

Fallen in Adam, all people are now inclined from conception to hate and rebel against God. We regularly direct our rebellion against God towards his image bearers—other people—and most specifically towards the human authorities he puts in our lives. Though speaking most directly of household “fathers” and “mothers,” the Fifth Commandment more broadly speaks of all human authorities as shown by the fact that religious and civil leaders are also called “fathers” and “mothers” in their respective spheres in Scripture (e.g., Judges 5:7; 17:10; 2 Kings 6:21; Isaiah 22:20-21). This broader application of the Fifth Commandment may also be seen in Ephesians 5-6, in which Paul quotes the Fifth Commandment regarding children submitting to parents (6:1-3) in the center of a larger unit which also discusses authorities in marriage (wives submitting to husbands) and employment (slaves/servants submitting to masters). Most broadly, then, our inclination to idolatry in turn inclines us to dishonor and disobey all these human authorities. We can’t hit God, so we hit mom. We can’t gossip about God behind his back, so we gossip about our husband or our boss. We can’t fully leave God’s presence, so we leave the church and avoid its pastors. In all this, we hurt ourselves even more than we hurt the others involved.

The Fifth Commandment provides the solution to this self-destructive idolatry. It is a solution that is entirely counter-intuitive to our sinful inclination: we receive blessing (“long life in the land”) through submission to authority. We honor and obey authorities simply because God appointed them over us and we trust God. When we obey God, he works the actions of these authorities for our ultimate good, no matter how wrongly motivated the authorities themselves may be at any given time. While there are times in which we must obey God rather than men, those instances should involve clear and weighty things in the Bible. Otherwise, our default should be to submit while appealing for relief to God and to the authority him/herself as able. In the Bible’s “upside down” logic, it is Christians’ regular submission to human authority which actually changes the world and gradually produces the blessing of long life in the land.

Discussion Questions

(Choose 1-2. Adjust for age.)

1- Two of the ways in which we give honor are by our words and our works. Our works give honor when we obey instructions. What kinds of words to and about our parents give them honor? What kinds of words to and about our parents do not give them honor?

2- What is one of the situations in which you are commonly tempted to not honor the human authorities over you?

3- How might God use our submission to even an unjust human authority to ultimately give us something good?

(Hint: think about Spirit-empowered character traits like patience and self-control, as well as biblical stories like that of Joseph in Genesis 37-50)

Practice—Honor by Thanking

List out some ways in which God has given you good through submission to the human authorities in your life. Remember, those authorities need not always be rightly motivated for God to use them for your good in some way or another. Parents can help young children think of ways God gives the children good through submitting to the other parent. Adults and older children can also list ways that God gives them good through submission to teachers, pastors, husbands, any employer(s), and/or civil government.

Pray together and thank God for that good. Then, if any of the human authorities you discuss are not already present during the devotional time, consider how you might communicate your gratitude to those authorities going forward.