I. The relationship in which we stand to our parents, a relationship based upon the fact that we owe our existence to them, that we are made in their image, that for so long a time we depend on them for the actual maintenance of life, and that, as the necessary result of all this, we are completely under their authority during childhood this relationship is naturally made the highest symbol of our relationship to God Himself.
II. Honouring our parents includes respect, love, and obedience as long as childhood and youth continue, and the gradual modification and transformation of these affections and duties into higher forms as manhood and womanhood draw on.
III. The promise attached to the commandment is a promise of prolonged national stability. St. Paul, slightly changing its form, makes it a promise of long life to individuals. Common experience justifies the change.
IV. There is one consideration that may induce us to obey this commandment which does not belong to the other nine: the time will come when it will be no longer possible for us to obey it.
R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments,p. 120.
I. Consider various ways in which a man may honour his father and mother: (1) by doing his best in the way of self-improvement; (2) by habits of care and frugality; (3) by keeping himself in soberness, temperance, and chastity.
II. Honour to parents is only the principal and most important application of a general principle. The Apostle bids us honour all men, and again, "In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves."
III. From the conception of love due to father and mother, we rise to the conception of the love due to God. When God calls Himself our Father, the clouds which conceal Him from our sight seem to break and vanish, and we feel that we can love and honour Him. Above all, we can recognise Him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in Him, and through His incarnation, has adopted us into the highest condition of sonship, and made us heirs with Him of eternal life.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates' Journal,Oct. 30th, 1884.
I. The Israelite, when he came into the land which the Lord God gave him, may have found many temptations not to honour his father and mother; and unless he believed that God knew what was good for him and for all men, and was commanding the thing that was right and true, and unless he believed that God would give him strength to obey that which He commanded, he would yield continually to his evil nature.
But the words would be fulfilled to him. His days would not be long in the land which the Lord his God gave him.
II. We too have the land for our inheritance. Our fathers and mothers belonged to it, as their fathers and mothers did, and while we reverence them, every one of us may feel that his days are indeed very long in this country. Yes, for they are not bounded by our birth, or by our death either. The country had people in it who belonged to us before we came into it; it will have those belonging to us when we have gone out of it. It is the Lord God who is, and was, and is to come, who has watched over our family, and will watch over those who shall come hereafter.
III. Count this commandment which God gives thee to be thy life. So out of the earthly honour there will spring one that is eternal. The vision of the perfect Father, the joy and blessedness of being His child, will dawn upon thee more and more, and with the higher blessing there will come a greater enjoyment and appreciation of the lower.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons Preached in Country Churches,p. 88.
References: Exodus 20:12. J. Vaughan, Sermons to Children,4th series, p. 194; E. Irving, Collected Writings, vol. iii., p. 244; R. Newton, Bible Warnings,p. 309; J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words,p. 105; S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality,p. 141; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments,p. 76. Exodus 20:12-21. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., pp. 210, 214.