{"id":119586,"date":"2026-10-29T00:08:34","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T04:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=119586"},"modified":"2026-10-29T00:08:34","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T04:08:34","slug":"honour-thy-father-and-thy-mother-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/what-jesus-teaches\/honour-thy-father-and-thy-mother-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother: What Jesus Said It Meant"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>10 Minute, 26 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div><p>Someone has probably quoted it at you.<\/p>\n\n<p>Maybe a relative said it across a table at a funeral. Maybe it arrived in a message with no other words around it. Maybe you said it to yourself at two in the morning, while a phone buzzed face-up with a name on the screen you did not want to see.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>Honour thy father and thy mother.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p>Eight words, and they land like a verdict. They usually turn up at the exact moment you are trying to decide something hard, and they are almost never explained. They are just set down in front of you, the way you would set down a bill.<\/p>\n\n<p>Here is the part that rarely gets mentioned. There is one episode on record where Jesus picked up this commandment and argued from it. He was not talking about phone calls. He was not talking about obedience, or holidays, or who visits whom. He was talking about money. And the people he aimed it at were not the ones staying away. They were the ones who had found a religious reason to stop paying.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What &quot;Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother&quot; Actually Says<\/h2>\n\n<p>The commandment is one sentence. In the King James Version, Exodus 20:12 reads: <em>&quot;Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.&quot;<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p>That is all of it. Read it again and notice what is not there.<\/p>\n\n<p>It does not say obey. It does not say visit. It does not say stay close, keep in contact, attend the birthday, answer the phone, forgive, or forget. It contains one instruction and one promise, and the instruction is a single word.<\/p>\n\n<p>That word, in Hebrew, is <em>kabed<\/em>. It is built on the idea of weight &mdash; to treat something as heavy, as having real heft, as counting for something. It is not a word about compliance. If you want that distinction worked through properly, we have done it elsewhere, in <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/relationships-and-family\/honor-a-parent-you-havent-forgiven\/\">Can You Honor a Parent You Haven&rsquo;t Forgiven?<\/a><\/p>\n\n<p>What almost nobody does is take the next step and ask what the person who quoted this commandment most famously thought it meant in practice.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>The One Time He Argued From It<\/h2>\n\n<p>Jesus names this commandment more than once. It turns up in the lists he recites, the way you might run through a set of rules everyone already knows.<\/p>\n\n<p>But there is only one episode where he picks it up and builds an argument on it. Mark and Matthew both record it. In Mark it sits in chapter 7, in the middle of a dispute with religious teachers that started over something else entirely &mdash; a disagreement about washing hands before meals.<\/p>\n\n<p>Then he changes the subject.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>&quot;And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.&quot;<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p><em>&quot;For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:&quot;<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p>He quotes the commandment. Then he quotes the harsher companion law beside it, the one about cursing a parent, to establish how seriously the old law took this. And then he describes what the people in front of him had done with it.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Corban: The Word That Let You Off<\/h2>\n\n<p>The next lines are the heart of it.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>&quot;But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.&quot;<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p>Mark stops to translate the word for his readers &mdash; <em>that is to say, a gift<\/em> &mdash; which suggests he did not expect them to know it. Corban was a declaration. You said it over property or money, and the thing became dedicated, spoken for, set aside. Out of ordinary reach.<\/p>\n\n<p>And once it was out of reach, it could not be spent on your parents.<\/p>\n\n<p>Then comes the sentence worth sitting with, the one that is easy to read straight past because it is short and plain:<\/p>\n\n<p><em>&quot;And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;&quot;<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p>That is the harm, in his own words. Not that the man was rude. Not that he stopped obeying. Not that he had become distant. He stopped <em>doing anything for them<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>&quot;Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.&quot;<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p>Look at which way that loophole runs. These were not people being pressured to stay close and refusing. They were people who had found a pious-sounding form of words that released them from paying for an ageing parent&rsquo;s upkeep &mdash; and the release was the religion itself. The tradition was the escape hatch.<\/p>\n\n<p>Which is close to the exact opposite of how the verse tends to get used now.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Two Words, One Verse Apart<\/h2>\n\n<p>There is a second detail, and it is hiding in plain sight in a letter Paul wrote.<\/p>\n\n<p>Ephesians 6:1 says: <em>&quot;Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.&quot;<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p>Ephesians 6:2 says: <em>&quot;Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;)&quot;<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p>Two instructions, one verse apart, and they are two different Greek words. The first is <em>hypakouo<\/em> &mdash; obey &mdash; and it is addressed to children. The second, where he quotes the commandment itself, is <em>timao<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>Timao<\/em> is a valuing word before it is a warm one. Its first sense is to fix a price on something, to set its worth. The same root supplies the ordinary word for the price of a thing.<\/p>\n\n<p>So the commandment&rsquo;s own verb is a question of valuation. Not how obedient are you. What is this life worth to you &mdash; in the practical sense of what you will actually put behind it.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Who the Commandment Was Talking To<\/h2>\n\n<p>This matters because of who was meant to be listening.<\/p>\n\n<p>The promise attached to it is about length of days in the land. That is the language of grown adults who hold property, not of small children. And in the world this was written into, there was no pension, no state provision, no insurance. An old person&rsquo;s survival ran directly through their adult children.<\/p>\n\n<p>So a commandment about how adults treat their ageing parents was, in that world, a commandment about whether somebody ate.<\/p>\n\n<p>That reframes it entirely. Its native subject is provision, not compliance. It is a question about weight carried and cost borne &mdash; which is precisely the thing being fought over in that argument in Mark 7. If the practical end of that question is where you actually are, <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/relationships-and-family\/what-does-the-bible-say-about-caring-for-aging-parents\/\">what the Bible says about caring for aging parents<\/a> goes further into it.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What the Argument Was Really About<\/h2>\n\n<p>Here is the thing worth noticing about that whole exchange.<\/p>\n\n<p>He was handed a religious question, and he did not answer it with a rule. He answered it by pointing at a person and asking what had actually happened to them.<\/p>\n\n<p>The tradition was intact. The words had been said correctly. Every box was ticked. And an old man somewhere was going without.<\/p>\n\n<p>That is a strange test to apply, and it is the one he applied. Not: was the form observed? But: who is better off, and who is worse off, because of the way you have used this?<\/p>\n\n<p>It says something quiet about the God behind that commandment, something easy to miss when the verse is being used as a lever. A rule that can be kept perfectly while a person goes hungry was never the point of the rule. The interest was always in the human being. And &mdash; uncomfortably for everyone standing in that argument &mdash; that includes the human being the rule is being quoted at.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What This Leaves You With<\/h2>\n\n<p>None of this tells you what to do about the phone.<\/p>\n\n<p>That is the honest ending, and it is deliberate. The commandment does not contain your decision. It never did. It is not a rule about contact, or frequency, or whether you show up in December.<\/p>\n\n<p>It is a question about weight. What will you treat this life as worth &mdash; and what will you actually put behind that answer?<\/p>\n\n<p>You might answer it with money. You might answer it from a long way off. You might answer it while keeping a door shut that needs to stay shut. People who have no relationship at all with a parent have answered it well, and people who speak every single day have failed to. If that specific question is the one you are sitting with, <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bible-resources\/bible-answers\/is-it-biblical-to-go-no-contact-with-parents\/\">is it biblical to go no contact with your parents<\/a> takes it on directly.<\/p>\n\n<p>What the verse cannot do &mdash; and what that argument in Mark 7 is, in the end, a story about someone refusing to let it do &mdash; is settle the matter on somebody else&rsquo;s behalf.<\/p>\n\n<p>The next person who sets those eight words down in front of you like a bill is not quoting a rule about obedience. They are quoting a question about value. And it is yours to answer.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Discussion Question<\/h2>\n\n<p>If a commandment can be kept to the letter while the person it was meant to protect goes without, is the problem the commandment or the way people use it? Tell us what you think in the comments.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Share This<\/h2>\n\n<p><em>The one time Jesus argued from &quot;honour thy father and thy mother,&quot; he was talking about money &mdash; and he was angry at the people using religion to get out of paying.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p><em>Turns out &quot;honour&quot; in that commandment is a valuing word. It asks what you will actually put behind someone&rsquo;s life. It never once mentions phone calls.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p><em>Someone quoted the fifth commandment at me like it settled the matter. It does not even contain the word obey.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<h2>Common Questions<\/h2>\n\n<p><strong>What does &quot;honour thy father and thy mother&quot; actually mean?<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Hebrew verb in Exodus 20:12 is <em>kabed<\/em>, built on the idea of weight &mdash; treating a life as having real heft and value. The commandment names no specific action. It does not say obey, visit, stay in contact, or reconcile. In the world it was written for, where there was no pension or state provision, honouring an ageing parent primarily meant making sure they were materially provided for.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>What did Jesus say about honouring your father and mother?<\/strong><br \/>\nIn Mark 7:9-13 Jesus accused religious teachers of rejecting this commandment to keep their own tradition. They used a practice called Corban, in which declaring property a dedicated gift put it beyond reach &mdash; including beyond the reach of their parents. His complaint was concrete: they would &quot;suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother.&quot; He treated the commandment as a matter of practical provision, and condemned using a religious device to escape it.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>What does Corban mean in Mark 7?<\/strong><br \/>\nCorban is a word Mark translates for his own readers as &quot;a gift.&quot; It was a declaration that dedicated something, setting it aside from ordinary use. According to Mark 7:11-12, some people made this declaration over property or income so that it could no longer be spent supporting their father or mother. Jesus called the practice a way of making the word of God of none effect.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Is honouring your parents the same as obeying them?<\/strong><br \/>\nNo, and Ephesians 6 keeps them separate one verse apart. Verse 1 tells children to obey their parents, using the Greek word <em>hypakouo<\/em>. Verse 2 then quotes the commandment itself using a different word, <em>timao<\/em>, whose first sense is to fix a value or price on something. Obedience is addressed to children. The commandment is a question of valuation, and it carries no age limit.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Is it spelled &quot;honor&quot; or &quot;honour&quot; your father and mother?<\/strong><br \/>\nBoth are correct and refer to the same commandment in Exodus 20:12. &quot;Honour&quot; is the spelling used in the King James Version and in British and Commonwealth English; &quot;honor&quot; is the American spelling found in many modern translations. 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But the one time Jesus took up this commandment, the argument was about money, not obedience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3718,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships-and-family","category-what-jesus-teaches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119587,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119586\/revisions\/119587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}