Title: Respect Your Parents
Respect your parents
2012.05.06
“Each one of you must fear your father and mother and keep my sabbaths, for I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 19:3).
I. Text Commentary
This text is a piece of the law that God gave to the people of Israel through Moses, and it presents the commandment to honor one's parents along with the command to keep the Sabbath. This shows the relationship between the Sabbath and parental honor, and the deep connection between worship and parental honor.
II. Honoring Parents and the Sabbath
A. The life and worship of the saints
The Bible speaks of worship in two senses. Worship in a narrow sense is an act of offering to God on the Sabbath, and worship in a broad sense is a life in which the people of Israel serve God and serve their neighbors according to the spirit of the ritual they received on that Sabbath for a week. Through worship in a narrow sense, we meet the Lord and experience God's love and truth, and through this, we will have victory in our six-day life. It becomes a living worship service.
B. No worship without life
Life is an extension of worship, and worship is a reduction in life. To worship is to live, and to live is to prepare for worship. Therefore, the six-day life is just a life prepared for worship, and from the point of view of life, worship is not for worship itself, but for living before God. However, the fact that the Sabbath and honoring parents are presented together shows that a worship service held once a week can be a worship that can be offered to God only when our life for a week becomes a life of honoring our parents.
II. Obligation to respect parents
A. What is Respect?
The word 'fear' in 'fear one's parents' is the same word as 'fear' used in 'Man fears God'. ‘Awe’ is a feeling of fear and love, a trembling fear in the presence of a holy God and a love that is drawn from the fact that he loves a sinner like himself. With this kind of heart, God requires parents to have the love and respect they deserve.
B. Love your parents
God has given us parents to maintain the order of creation, and strictly commands us to honor our parents. He commanded them to honor their parents for the sole reason of being a parent, regardless of their personality, social status, or wealth. This is important, and it is the path to happiness in life.
But why don't they really respect their parents? This is because the relationship with the parents cannot be properly restored due to the wounds and heartbreaking memories they received as a parent. Therefore, before you can love your parents, you must forgive them and free them from their wounds. It is not easy for human beings to forgive their parents and restore broken relationships. However, we can gain the strength to forgive our parents through the resources and power of the gospel, the cross of Christ, who sacrificed, forgiven, and loved for all our sins. In addition, we must love our parents with the love of Christ by fully surrendering ourselves with the love of Christ's caritas we received, that is, the infinite love of self-forsaking that Jesus Christ showed.
IV. conclusion
Forgive and love your parents. And express your love. Since the grace of the cross was given to restore the family in the gospel, it should become a grain of wheat for family reconciliation and become a channel of grace through which God's love and knowledge flow.