Honor Your Mother

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” -Exodus 20:12 (ESV)

The fifth commandment is often termed “the first commandment with a promise.” Indeed, it is the only one of the Ten Commandments with a specific promise attached. Those who respect and honor their earthly father and mother are promised long life in the land the Lord gives them. Remember that Moses received the Ten Commandments not long after the Israelites escaped Egyptian bondage. They were looking forward to soon settling in the Promised Land.

God commanded them to honor parents. “Honor” is a word meaning to treat with respect and dignity, love and deference, and to provide for parents’ needs and look after them in their old age. Both parents are to receive this preferential and loving treatment. Today, when we observe a day set aside to honor mothers, we will consider ways in which we can honor mothers.

Studying the history of Mother’s Day, we learn that the ancient Greek and Roman culture had a specified time to honor mothers. In America, a movement was begun in 1905, led by Miss Anna Jarvis of West Virginia, to honor mothers in general by honoring her own mother who had just died and who had cared for wounded soldiers, both Union and Southern, during the Civil War. In 1908, Miss Jarvis set a day of celebration in the St. Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, Virginia, a church now noted as the one starting the International Mother’s Day. Even though a proposal to have an annual Mother’s Day lost in both Senate and House in 1908, by 1911 enough interest had been generated so that observances were held in most all the states. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation declaring the second Sunday in May as a national day to honor mothers. The day has been observed since that date throughout the United States.

Paul the Apostle repeated the fifth commandment in Ephesians 6:2. Also, the Apostle, writing to his ‘son in the gospel,’ Timothy, had these words about honoring mothers: “But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household, and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.”

When a mother is given honor and respect, Proverbs 31:28 states that “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.”

Love of children for the mother and love of the mother for her children is a vital concept in God’s plan for families. In this modern day, we have seen a wide departure from biblical admonitions to honor mother and for a mother to love and rear children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The words written by Dr. B. B. McKinney (1886-1952) and put to “The Christian Home’ tune also composed by Dr. McKinney is a prayer. May we pray it sincerely and earnestly for a return to God’s ways for the home and for honoring mothers:

“God give us Christian homes!

Homes where the mother, in caring quest,

Strives to show others Your way is best,

Homes where the Lord is an honored guest;

God give us Christian homes;

God give us Christian homes.”

-Ethelene Dyer Jones 05.14.2017