The fifth commandment is short and has no conditions attached: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12, NKJV).
There is no footnote saying “provided they were good parents”, and no clause excusing you if your father drank, your mother favoured a sibling, or either of them hurt you in ways you are still working through in your forties. God knew every flawed parent who would ever live, and He still gave the command without qualification. That is hard for many of us, because we love our parents, they shaped us, and if we are honest, they also got a great deal wrong.
Obedience Has Limits; Honour Remains
Paul writes to children: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1, NKJV). The words “in the Lord” set a limit, and it is worth seeing where Paul places it. It applies to obedience. Nobody is required to obey a parent’s instruction to sin; obedience stops where God’s law begins. Scripture never gives honour the same exit. We may sometimes have to refuse an instruction, but we are not released from honouring the person who gave it.
Ham and the Brothers Who Walked Backwards
Scripture does not hide flawed parents. Not long after the flood, Noah got drunk and lay uncovered in his tent (Genesis 9:20-21). What his sons did next is instructive:
“And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.” (Genesis 9:22-23, NKJV)
Noah’s failure was a fact. Ham’s failure was what he did with it: he exposed his father’s shame and made it a story for others. Shem and Japheth walked in backwards so they would not even see, and covered what could be covered. They honoured their father without pretending his weakness was not real.
The Elephant Matriarch
Wildlife films often show an old elephant matriarch, sometimes lame or half-blind, still leading her herd to water sources she remembers from decades before. The younger, stronger cows do not push her aside. The herd stays close and waits for her. When she dies, they have been seen standing over her body for days, touching her with their trunks. Her weakness never cost her their respect. Who she was to them mattered more than how well she performed.
A Son Who Visited Anyway
Picture a man whose father was hard and often absent, quick with his hands and slow with affection, the kind of father many grown children stop calling. When the father grows old and frail, the son has every reason to stay away. Instead he begins visiting every week. He sits with his father, makes sure the prescriptions are filled and the meals cooked. He does not pretend the past never happened, and he does not rewrite it into something gentler. One afternoon his father tries to justify the old harshness, and the son says gently but firmly, “I’m not here to argue about that. I’m here because you’re my father.” He honours the position without pretending his father earned it.
What Honour Is Not
This needs saying plainly. Honour does not mean obeying an instruction to sin, staying in danger or keeping silent about real harm. A child told to lie or steal does not honour a parent by obeying; “in the Lord” settles that. An adult who has survived genuine abuse is not commanded to remain in physical danger or to pretend it did not happen.
Honour can be shown from a careful distance when necessary: refusing to slander, refusing revenge, praying for the parent’s heart and not repaying evil for evil (Romans 12:17-19), while still protecting yourself from further harm. Covering a father’s shame, as Shem and Japheth did, is not the same as being told to stay inside a burning house. What honour rules out is contempt, mockery and treating the relationship as worthless because a parent failed to earn admiration. However understandable the hurt behind it, Scripture never permits that.
This command was never meant only for easy parents. If you have a parent you have quietly written off, think of one deliberate act of honour you could offer this week, whether a call, a visit, a kind word or a prayer for them. Honour where you can, protect yourself where you must, and leave the rest in God’s hands.
If honouring a difficult parent, or loving anyone you find hard to love, feels like more than a short post can help with, I have written a fuller book on that struggle. How to Love Someone Hard to Love is free to read online or download.
