Pastor Joel Webben and hosts Ryan Aris and Dr. Joseph Boot dissect the Fifth Commandment, contrasting biblical mandates to honor parents with modern cultural failures like critical theory and state dependency. Webben shares his personal testimony of repenting from an immature church-planting ambition that neglected his Texas family, illustrating how honoring parents involves prioritizing their successes and avoiding slander. The discussion highlights the unique positive structure of this commandment, its promise of temporal blessing, and the dangers of idolizing youth while abandoning elders, ultimately arguing that rejecting familial duty allows the state to seize both burdens and blessings. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Honoring the Fifth Commandment00:02:41
Hi, this is Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries, and this is a special bonus episode.
I recently received the privilege of jumping on the Institute for Cultural Reformation from the Ezra Institute with Dr. Joseph Boot.
I had the privilege of being invited on their show to talk about the fifth commandment.
They're currently doing a series through the Ten Commandments.
I was invited on to speak in regards to the fifth commandment that children are commanded by God to honor thy father and mother.
And it happens to be the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with them and that they would live a long life.
In the land that they're inheriting.
Tune in to this special episode from the Ezra Institute, the Institute for Cultural Reformation, where I get to be a guest with the host being Dr. Joseph Boot.
Welcome back to the podcast for cultural reformation brought to you by the Ezra Institute.
Welcome back, one and all.
This is the podcast for cultural reformation brought to you by the Ezra Institute.
I'm Ryan Aris.
With me, as always, is Dr. Joe Boot.
And with us for the first time on this show, we're very privileged to have a special guest, Pastor Joel Webben.
And Joel is president and founder of Right Response Ministries, senior pastor of Covenant Bible Church, located on the north side of Austin, Texas.
Joel's married to Megan, and he's the father of Olive, Ruth, and Eleanor.
And Joel, we're.
Franklin now.
And Franklin.
Oh, I'm fine.
We have a fourth.
I have a son.
The name will continue on, Lord willing.
Many congratulations.
I'm dealing with out of date information here.
Sorry about that.
Well, it quickly goes out of date because my wife and I, we are having lots of children quickly.
So I don't blame you.
Praise God.
Yeah, amen.
Well, I'm glad you could be with us for this conversation.
Our subject today is going to be the fifth commandment.
And.
I'll read that out and we will deal with some of the details and implications and applications of where that fits in context and how it works itself out in our daily life here.
So, this is from Exodus chapter 20, verse 12, where we read, Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.
Planting Churches with Purpose00:05:30
And, Joel, I just wanted to.
To start with you here, when we were corresponding, we were touching base on setting up to have you on the show.
We were looking ahead.
There were several of the commandments that we could have chosen from.
And you got back to me and said, I'd like to do the fifth commandment.
Maybe we'll just start with what is it that drew you to this particular one?
Great question.
Yeah, part of what drew me to it is, I think, my own personal repentance in this area.
Um, I, you know, I did my undergrad in Dallas, Texas.
I was born and raised in Bay City, Texas.
It's a small town on the Gulf Coast in between Galveston and Corpus Christi.
Uh, went off to school, and when I finished school, I just had this burning desire, Woe am I if I don't plant a church?
Which, really, to be completely honest, was um, I had a strong desire to preach, and I do believe that that came from the Lord.
And there's a desire, I had that a noble desire, um, to.
To be an elder, but I don't think that I was ready.
And I think that I at least subconsciously knew that.
But there was this really nifty category that was becoming increasingly popular at the time.
This is around 2007, 8, 9, called church planting.
And with church planting, you could be a pastor before you were qualified.
And so, you know, so I opted towards, you know, knowing that I was a 23 year old single man and that it was highly unlikely that I was going to get a letter in the mail.
You know, some congregation calling me to be their senior pastor.
So I thought, well, I'll start one.
And again, I think by the grace of God, there were a lot of noble desires and right instincts.
There was plenty of, by the grace of God, again, purity, but there were also plenty of sinful desires and, at bare minimum, at least immature and incomplete and foolish ambitions.
And so I went off to plant a church and it was kind of this rite of passage.
I thought, you know, that.
You know, if you're going to do something significant for the Lord, it needs to be ministry, right?
I wouldn't have known these things at the time, but like two fish swimming in the ocean, passing by each other, and one saying, The water sure is nice today.
And the other says, What is water?
I was two kingdoms by default.
I was premillennial, dispensational, these things by default.
And so for me, I did not have a proper understanding of the kingdom of God expressed beyond simply the four walls of the church institute as.
Dr. Boot has so well expressed.
So I thought if I'm going to advance the kingdom of God, it has to be within the ecclesiastical sphere.
And so it must be pastoral ministry.
And so I decided to be a pastor.
And if I want to do something significant, like being a pastor, I could be even more significant by being a church planter, not just pastoring a church, but starting one.
And if I want to be even greater, then I could start a church in perhaps a more difficult context.
So I opted for California.
And so I moved away, to answer your question, from my mother and father.
And I went to California, and not saying that a child can't geographically, you know, a grown adult child move away from their parents.
But I think I had not outspokenly, but at least a subtle aversion and despising Texas and flyover America.
I, you know, I bought into some of the rhetoric of the sophisticated, cool kids' table within evangelicalism and church planting at the time that, you know, if inner city ministry is all the rage and, You know, rural areas is really kind of a subtle compromise.
And so I just bought into all of that.
And as I got older by the end of 2020, really before COVID hit and those kinds of things, I was already beginning to think eventually I should move back to Texas.
My wife's parents were in Texas, my parents were in Texas.
So we had both sides of mothers and fathers in Texas and thinking we're now having children, we want them.
To have regular engagement with their grandparents.
And I was thinking about my children.
I was thinking, one day my children are going to grow up.
Number one, are they going to be able to make a living and start a household in California?
Not just, it's already hard right now, but 20 years from now, what will that be?
Is this decision ultimately going to set the stage for the displacement of my own family?
And then what example am I setting?
I'm showing my children that honoring thy father and mother means inviting them into our lives a couple times a year.
For a few days at a time to play with the grandkids.
But I thought, what kind of example would it demonstrate for my own children, for me as a grown child, to honor my father and mother to the extent of saying, I want to physically move and reorient my life and the life of my children to where you're an active part of it and position ourselves financially to where when our mothers and fathers, my wife and mine, begin to age, where we could financially accommodate.
Active Love for Parents00:06:59
Them, where we wouldn't just have to send them off to a home, but we could bring them into ours.
So, all that being said, I think that this commandment appeals to me because of my personal failure in this area by God's grace, personal repentance, and just a recognition that the young child under his father's roof is called to obedience, full obedience to his mother and father.
But coming to see that the commandment, not merely to obey, but to honor the father and mother, is actually a lifelong commandment that applies to grown children outside of the home.
In recognizing that I need to do better in that.
Joel, I really appreciate that testimony.
One thing that I wanted to open up to both of you for comment, and maybe I'll press on with you, Joel, here, is that readers of Scripture, it's a common designation or observation that there are in the Ten Commandments two tables.
There's a distinction between Commandments as far as relationship to God, which is the first four, and then the latter six are commandments with relation concerning relationships between people.
And I can't help but observe that there is a parallel between the fifth commandment and the first commandment, or the first commandments of either table, insofar as there are certain persons who are owed specific treatment, specific responses, and relations.
And I guess the question in all of that is just can you comment further on that, on why that might be?
Of course, it's deliberate in Scripture, nothing is accidental or superfluous, but what accounts for that structure and what might be some significance or implication of it?
That's a great question.
Within the second table of the law, so beginning with commandment number five, it's also worth noting that that's the only commandment out of the six, the latter six of the Ten Commandments, that's stated in the Positive sense, right?
Starting with commandments six through ten, you have prohibitions thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet.
But the fifth commandment is the first of the second table of law in relation to our love for neighbor.
It's also the only commandment towards neighbor stated in the positive sense, not just something that you should avoid, but something that you should actively commit yourself to doing, not just.
Thou shalt not dishonor or thou shalt not blaspheme, but profane thy father and mother, but thou shalt honor thy father and mother.
So that's unique.
And it's also the first commandment, which I know we'll get to later on in this episode with a promise.
And so it's unique in all those senses.
It's the first of the second table of the law.
It's the only in the second table of the law stated in the positive sense.
And it's the only one that's explicitly, I believe there's a promise for all obedience, but where the promise is explicitly stated.
And not only a heavenly promise and eternal promise, but a temporal and earthly promise as well.
And you're right.
The last thing to note is that there does seem to be a stark comparison and correlation between the first commandment in the second table and the first commandment in the first table.
So, the first commandment that we find out of the 10 in our relation to God is that we should have no other gods before him.
Even then, still kind of stated in that negative sense of a prohibition, something to avoid, namely idolatry.
But again, if we were to reverse it and state it in the positive sense, it would be fidelity, loyalty, allegiance, and wholehearted worship and love of the triune God.
No other idols, no other gods, no devotion to anyone else, no compromise, no divided allegiance, but honoring the Father of all, honoring the Heavenly Father, the Father of lights, from whom every good and perfect gift comes down.
And then we find the fifth commandment to honor thy father and mother.
And I think that that's, in a sense, I think that the reason why everything seems to begin with that our relationship to the Heavenly Father and then our biological, familial fathers is because that's the first relationship that we have.
That, in a very real sense, I mean, my children are small five, three, two, and five months.
And their best friends are mom and dad and each other.
They don't have much of a social network.
Outside of our family of six, the vast majority of their time is spent in the home.
The vast majority of their affections are oriented towards myself and their mother.
And I think that, you know, Augustine argued for properly ordering our loves, our affections, that it's not just love everyone, but love has, you know, circles like ripples in a pond that build outwardly.
And we start with what's most near and most dear.
There's an order of priorities.
That so much of sin is a misordered affection, that I love something more than I should or something less than I should.
So much of anger is, at least sinful anger, is a relationship with, you know, that I love myself more than others.
And so I'm more deeply offended than I should be.
And so, beginning with this order, this hierarchy of loves, we're called to love God, the Heavenly Father first.
But then, as it relates to loving our neighbor, we have 8.2 billion.
And what I've noticed, especially with younger people, millennials and Gen Z, they love love in theory, but they seem to really struggle in practice.
So they love the children in Uganda.
They love Ukraine.
They love this, they love that.
But they can't share the refrigerator with their college roommate.
So they love everyone until they meet someone.
Ironically, the only people they love, 8 billion people, they really only don't love.
30, but the 30 that they don't love are the only 30 people that they've ever had a close relationship with, which should, you know, you would think that they would naturally conclude that actually they're not good at love and that this theoretical love for all these strangers out there actually isn't love at all because whenever it's put to a test, it's quickly proven to be false.
And so, all that being said, it's such a close relationship.
Life and Obligation00:15:43
Honor thy father and mother.
These are the first people that you come to know.
You're in their home, you're at their table, you're nursing from your mother's breast, you're under your father's tutelage.
And if you can't love the first people that you literally meet in life, the two first people that you meet in your life when your eyes open and you breathe your first breath and come into the world, then it's just fallacious and absurd to think that you would be able to love any other neighbor if you can't love the first two neighbors that you meet.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
I noticed the same thing that this is the.
The first and only of the positive commandments in the second table.
And it's also, in some ways, it's the most demanding, whereas the others are universal prohibitions do not murder, full stop, do not murder anybody.
That's fairly easy to do.
We're all just sitting here not murdering.
But we have to.
There's something that is enjoined to us, something that is required of us in terms of.
Demonstrating and showing that honor that we're called on to show.
Joe, do you have any follow up on that question?
Yeah, that was a helpful and a comprehensive answer.
What occurred to me while Joel was speaking is that, in some respects, this commandment, the fifth commandment, feels like a transitional commandment that has a foot on both tables because the Your parents, your father, and your mother are the source of your life in the human sense.
So we're required to honor God as the creator and worship Him as creator and king, and of course in Christ as redeemer as well.
But there is a sense in which the image bearing nature of human beings, and especially male and female, made in the image of God, the establishment of the family, we do have the holy family, father, son.
And Holy Spirit.
And so God's covenantal revelation of Himself is in familial terms.
And so when we honor our parents, we are actually honoring God.
That's how significant this is.
In a certain respect, as Joel was saying, when our children are young, especially, we represent God to them, we represent the fatherhood of God to them.
We represent the nurturing aspects of God, the mother, the mothering character of God, also, as Jesus said, as a hen gathers her chicks beneath its wings.
So there is, because male and female are made in the image of God.
So parents are imaging God to their children, and in the temporal sense, are the source of our life.
And so God regards the dishonoring of parents extremely seriously.
And as very much an offense against God.
That's why there's this promise of life.
There's blessing, such a direct blessing and cursing attached to it.
And Jesus in Mark 7, and perhaps we'll come to this later, takes it so seriously that he really rebukes the Pharisees for saying, Well, I brought these gifts to God, therefore I don't have any obligation towards honoring my parents.
He says, You make void the law of God.
By your tradition.
And he talks about, of course, the cursing of parents.
You know, there's a there's a the older covenant takes so seriously the dishonoring of parents, the abuse of parents that it actually carried the death penalty.
So there is a there's a great seriousness attached to this.
And you, when you read this fifth commandment, you feel like there's a foot on either uh table of the of the law here that's this transitional um uh command because we really do, as parents in the early lives of our children, really represent God.
To them.
So there's, of course, an obligation on parents there too.
The focus of this command is the obligation of children towards their parents.
But it's certainly one of the reasons why Karl Marx understood he says the secret to the holy family is the earthly family.
And to destroy the former, you must destroy the latter in theory and in practice.
So he was convinced, Marx and Engels were convinced, if you destroy the earthly family, you can get rid of God.
So if we can get rid of honoring parents in our society, we We create an atheistic, irreligious, blasphemous society.
Right.
With one thing that I want to add with what Joe mentioned in terms of a breach of the fifth commandment carrying with it the penalty of capital punishment, that's another, I would cite as another biblical example to support the point that although obedience, full, practical, in every regard, obedience, children obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord.
Colossians 3 20.
Although full obedience is, I believe, a temporary command for young children under their father's roof.
The commandment, the fifth commandment, to honor thy father and mother, I really do see as being a lifelong commandment that the grown child who has now established his own household is still called to honor his father and mother.
And one of the proof texts for that would be what Joe mentioned in terms of dishonoring the father and mother, carrying with it the penalty of capital punishment, because what's mentioned in that particular text is this is not, the descriptive terms is not.
A, you know, indicative of a five year old child dishonoring his parents with a temper tantrum.
It mentions drunkenness, right?
So I don't think it's mentioned, I don't think it has in view the five year old child throwing a fit.
It has in view a grown adult child who likely has left his father's home and has now started his own household, but he's a deadbeat.
He's a public drunk.
He's bringing shame.
Upon his father and mother, and that he's the one that's described as being worthy of the death penalty, which means, as Joe used that text, it means that the commandment to honor the father and mother is incredibly serious because it carries such weighty penalties.
But in addition to its seriousness, it also shows the longevity of the application of that command, that it doesn't cease simply because you've grown up.
Right, absolutely.
I think, and it's interesting, the The New Testament, the Greek word for this word translated honor is tomeo.
And that's where we get our English word to esteem or to assess something in your estimation.
And I think it probably carries, gets at the sense or has space for that sense that adult children are also to rightly esteem their parents.
And that, as you say, Joel, that looks different.
When you're five years old, as opposed to when you're 45 years old, but it's the same principle.
I wanted to spend a bit more time before we dive into that.
I just wanted to follow up on the question of children specifically, and a sense of younger children, I think, is implied in the text in Ephesians 6, where it recapitulates this commandment.
So, this is Ephesians 6, 1 and 2, where Paul says, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.
And this is, we're obviously meant to hear the Ten Commandments and Exodus 20 ringing in our ears, but there's also a modification of that commandment.
And, Joe, I know that.
You've spoken about this several times and written about it in other contexts, but so maybe I'll get you to lead off here.
How that commandment is modified from the first instance to its application here in the New Testament.
Well, first, there in Ephesians, Paul, as Joel says, there, rightly, there is a more detailed description of what is in mind for children.
And the obligation of children to honor their parents.
And the reason given for that is not simply some sociological reason or some cultural reason, but because God says, for this is right.
This is right.
It is what God requires, it's what God commands that children are obedient to their parents.
And we're living in an age of radical rebellion against parents.
Of radical disobedience.
And of course, that is encouraged by a secularizing and repaganizing Western culture that parents are set aside, they're an object of ridicule.
You only have to look at many of the sitcoms that are so popular today and the way the family is portrayed to see, in particular, fathers are the object of ridicule.
And children, you know, the rebel teenager.
I mean, don't forget that.
Even terms like teenager were invented by sociologists in the 20th century to encourage, and parents are led to expect it's almost a norm now that you are led to expect that your teenagers will be defiant and rebellious, and this is normal, this is even good.
And the state and its education system loves to encourage that and to drive a wedge between parents and children.
But Paul, there, first of all, enjoins obedience upon children.
And I think.
Joel is right in saying that that's talking about the younger child that is living under their parents' roof, that has not reached an age of independence and responsibility.
That's where obedience is required.
But the other change there that we don't see in Exodus 20, and this is a more subtle modification, is the, and it's very interesting that it's still there.
And this is an especially of note for the more two kingdoms type people.
And the tendency that we have to think of the commandments purely in negative terms, that they are just a few prohibitions that God doesn't want us to do.
Now, there's always a positive connotation to all the commands, and this one is stated in crystal clear terms that it may go well with you and you live long in the earth.
Now, of course, in Exodus 20, the commandment is that you may live long in the land, because the immediate positivization here is to the Hebrews who are in Canaan that they would live long in that land.
But Paul now doesn't dispense with the promise of long life and essentially prosperity.
As the general direction of providence with regards to obedience.
And don't forget that there will always be exceptions to a general pattern, but this is what scripture indicates.
Here's the general pattern you honor your father and mother, it will go well with you, and you will live long in the earth.
So Paul continues the application of the promise of blessing and long life, but he doesn't restrict it to a strip of land in Palestine.
The land he expands it just like the fullness of the gospel is expanded to the whole earth.
So, the promise is that if we honor our parents, um, the we can expect our gen the general experience of human beings will be that they will live long in the earth, uh, that God will bless them.
Um, and one of the things He'll bless them with is a longevity, um, for an honoring of parents.
And it's only a radical secularization, a humanism that's crept into the church that we overlook this command.
And see Paul's important covenantal modification of it.
It goes beyond the strip of land in Palestine now that we may live long in the earth.
Yeah, thanks, Joe.
Joel, do you have anything to add to that comment?
Yeah, I completely agree.
And I'm just encouraged when I see, you know, I've preached on Psalm 127 that talks about children are a heritage from the Lord.
A blessing from the Lord, an inheritance from the Lord.
Blessed is the man whose quiver is full.
And, you know, that the father would not be put to shame, that his sons would be with him in the city gates.
And there's so much that comes out of that, but I remember using Ephesians chapter 6 as a subtext as I was preaching three weeks on a five verse psalm, Psalm 127.
It's a very short psalm.
But I was talking about, you know, the blessing of having children, having many children, and having children in your youth.
That it's not just that they replace their father in the city gates, but they're with him, meaning that when the children come of age, particularly his sons, and they're of ruling age, fighting age, that the father has not been sent off to pasture, so to speak, that he's not retired.
He's still in the fray, and now he just has his sons with him.
And it's almost like this imagery of the father sitting back and looking to his sons with a twinkle in the eye, maybe a wink or a nod, and saying, Take care of my light work.
That the city gates were the place of prestige and power, and where the elders would sit and render judgments and decisions.
It's also an entrance to the city and a defense for the city.
So, if there's any attack, the gates would be the first point of entry, the first place of defense.
And so, it's as though the enemies of the Father are coming, and he no longer is really even required to make his own defense.
Living as Fugitives00:04:40
He's so trusted in his sons who are well shaped and formed by this point, chip off the old block, so to speak, that he doesn't even have to get up.
His sons can take care of his handiwork.
And so, all that being said, and that's not just for the record, meaning that we benefit by having many children automatically.
Doug Wilson, I think, is fond of saying that Samuel would not have benefited by having five sons who took bribes rather than two.
So, we want to have quality children and not just quantity children.
But I say all that to say that as I was preaching through that and looking at Ephesians 6 in relation to Exodus 20, I just, again, continually in my congregation, my local pastoral ministry, I'm continually pushing back against this pietism and continually pushing back against antinomianism, continually pushing back against the notion that it's only the gospel and that it's only eternal.
Promises and eternal inheritance.
And so I said that if we look in the New Testament, we see the Apostle Paul utilizing the fifth commandment from the Decalogue, and he not only restates the commandment, but he also restates the promise.
He assumes that the promise is just as good now under the new covenant, that the promise is just as good as it was for Israel back then, and that the commandment is just as sound and just as applicable as it was back then.
And I can hardly even imagine.
I feel like most of our big Eva types today, if they were preaching Ephesians chapter 6, verses 1 through 4, I can't imagine how long that sermon would need to be in order for them to present the sufficient caveats and disclaimers, hedging their bets and protecting against any kind of that might be construed as a works based theology.
You know, that now they might be accused of being deonymous, Joel, but worse still.
Right, exactly.
Exactly.
So they, But they would, oh, well, now there is a promise, but not really.
And this promise is really, if there's any promise at all, it's certainly not a guarantee.
And it's a spiritual promise, an eternal promise.
Land here doesn't mean land.
And they would have to do a similar thing with the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes, where Jesus says that the meek will inherit the earth.
There are multiple places in the New Testament.
It's not just an Old Testament, Old Covenant notion of taking over the land.
And people often will cite perhaps Israel in exile for 70 years in Babylon and seek the welfare of the city, right?
Jeremiah 27.
Seek the welfare of the city, for if the city prospers, you will prosper also.
And so we're called to live like Mordecai.
We're called to live like, as fugitives who are being winsome and careful and shrewd to benefit Babylon, benefit the enemies of God, benefit.
Pagans, those who have taken us captive, knowing that if they benefit, their hearts won't necessarily turn in allegiance towards God, but if they materially benefit, then we'll get some of the trickle down economics that come with that.
But what about the book of Joshua?
What if the more accurate analogy, correlation for New Testament Christians living in the land, the physical, literal land that we live in today, this earth, this dirt, what if we're called to live like Like the people of Israel in the time of Joshua.
What if we're not called to live as fugitives in the land, but what if we're called to live in such a way that we believe that our inheritance is that we overcome and take over the land?
That we're not just in exile, we're not just in captivity, but we're actually conquering the land.
And certainly we do this in a very shrewd fashion and in a gracious fashion and a loving fashion.
But I do believe that that is the mandate of the New Testament Christian.
And I believe that one of the secrets to accomplishing this is given.
To us in Ephesians chapter 6, in relation to Exodus chapter 20, in the fifth commandment, one of the ways that we inherit the land and live a prosperous life in the land, one of the principles is by honoring our father and mother.
David, I think of David and his view of the law of God on Psalm 119 and multiple other places.
Moral Cultures Blessed00:02:56
But David doesn't just begrudgingly submit to God's law, he delights in God's law.
And he sees it not only as that which is morally right, but he sees thy law is good, holy.
And right.
It's the morally right thing, but it's also, and that's what we see in Ephesians chapter 6 children obey your parents in the Lord, for it is right.
But immediately on the heels of that, it's not only morally right in the sight of God, but it is practically and tangibly productive and beneficial.
It is the right thing, it is also the good thing.
And those two sentiments are never opposed.
That which is right in the sight of God, morally right by God's eternal and immutable standard, is also that which produces good.
For the individual and for all their neighbors.
One of the ways that we can love our neighbors, our first neighbors being our parents, but then love neighbors beyond that familial circle is by honoring our father and mother and raising and training our children to do the same.
Cultures that honor their father and mother are more prosperous cultures, they're better cultures.
Cultures are not equal.
In terms of ethnicity, no ethnicity is inherently superior or inferior to another.
But when we speak of culture, we don't embrace egalitarian principles with culture.
Cultures are better or worse insofar, nothing inherent to the culture itself, but a culture is better or worse insofar as it has inherited and applied principles of the Bible.
So, Christendom, cultures that are immersed in Christendom, are better cultures and have better tenets of those cultures because they've been saturated in the Word of God for centuries and multiple generations.
And so, a culture that embraces The fifth commandment and this principle of honor for fathers and mothers is not only a culture that is pleasing to the Lord, Colossians 3 20, children obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to God, or Ephesians chapter 6, verse 1, children obey your parents in the Lord, for it's morally right in the sight of God.
But those same cultures that do that which pleases the Lord and that which is morally right according to his immutable standard are also the cultures that are tangibly and practically blessed, not only spiritually in the life to come, eternally, but temporally here and now.
You can expect, as a general principle, as Joe said earlier, to live a longer life, literally a longer life in the earth, and that things will go well with you.
So it's both quantity and quality of life a quantity of life, longevity, but also quality that things will go well with you in this land that you're inheriting.
And again, I don't think that the land moves from Exodus 20 to being the physical land of Canaan for Israel.
And then in Ephesians 6, the land is now this heavenly land.
The Hard Work of Honor00:06:27
Land.
But I think if there's any movement at all, any transition from Exodus 20 to Ephesians 6, I think the only transition is not from earth to heaven, but from one geographic concentrated place on earth, namely the land of Canaan, to the whole earth now.
The meek shall inherit the whole thing.
All of it belongs to the Christian and our children.
Amen.
Amen.
Joel.
We started this episode with a bit of a memoir from you about where you had needed to repent of imbibing a lot of modern ideas as relates to this commandment.
Can we move or take a cue from that now?
And just without presuming to bind anybody's conscience, where would you say, and I'll throw it open to both of you in turn, but where would you say are some areas where we have in the modern West, we have failed to?
Honor our fathers and mothers?
What do we culturally need to be repenting of in this regard?
The first thing that I think of, and I think Joe will have even better insights on this particular point, but the first thing that I think of that I'd be remiss as I've been praying about coming on this episode and what the Lord would have for me to share, the one thing that I haven't gotten to yet that I just feel like it would be a large failure if I missed it.
And so I'm just going to get it in now because I think it, Generally deals with your question.
I think Joe can answer more specifically.
But on a pastoral note, one of the things that I find with my congregants, adults, not their children still in the home, young children, but adults who are saying, Pastor, I see that this is a lifelong commandment to honor our father and mother.
Even though I'm grown now and I've moved out of my father's house and I've started my own household, I'm still called to honor him.
And one of the things that I hear again and again and again is I hear it expressed.
From Christians, well meaning Christians, and Christians who I think genuinely desire to honor their father and mother, they just express how difficult it is.
And particularly, the most common conversation that's had is it's really hard to honor my father and mother, Joel, because they have bad theology, or they're lukewarm in their convictions and their faith, or Or, you know, they're the typical boomer, at least in America.
I can't speak for you guys, but that drive around with a bumper sticker that says, I'm spending my children's inheritance, which is a wicked thing.
And I do think that there's a sense in which millennials, in particular, feel as though their father and mother just failed them.
That, you know, I mean, the guy who started Hobby Lobby, you know, is going to be giving all of it, you know, to charities, is something that was recently published, a piece of news.
And instead of, you know, Keeping the business and allowing it to pass down within his family to his children.
Jackie Chan, and I'm sure there's some strategic tax avoiding strategies employed in this, but recently announced that he's going to be giving all of his money to charity and a trust, wrapping it up in some charity trust instead of giving it as an inheritance.
And so I think there's this notion that, at least for Christians, I think in the West and particularly America, that boomers, they They did a lot.
They worked a lot of hours.
They clocked in a lot in the workplace.
They made relatively a lot of money.
Economically speaking, if you look at the last 200 years of history, I mean, it was just that generation made a ton of money, disproportionately with virtually every other generation in modern history in the West, at least in America.
Many of them are reluctant to pass the baton, as it were, to their children's generation and creating space for them and opportunities.
Gen X feels completely like they were just the forgotten generation, skipped over.
There's not always this inheritance being given.
They were counseled by their parents, my generation, to go to college.
And I don't think that our parents, I don't think it was malicious, but many people in my generation went to college and now they have $60,000, $80,000, $100,000 of school debt and are no more positioned to actually be employable than had they not gone to college.
And so there's a lot of pent up frustration, I think.
Now, the reality is, I'm.
Suspicious.
I've given multiple practical examples to say why it's particularly hard for my generation to honor their father and mother.
But I think of, you know, Peter in one of his epistles that says, speaks of sin that is common to man.
And I think that if I could speak to the saints of past generations in heaven, they would probably be able to cite, you know, 15 examples of why it was their generation, it was the hardest to honor their father and mother.
And this other generation was the hardest.
And the reality is, I think that, um, Yeah, boomers, I think boomers failed in some unique ways, but every generation failed in some unique ways.
Boomers didn't just, they weren't created in a vacuum.
Everybody is the product of their parents and their parents and their parents in a particular context.
The greatest generation had some particular failures and beyond that, beyond that, beyond that.
And so I think what I've come to realize is that it's just hard to honor your father and mother, period, no matter what generation you're in.
And you can try to make a particular case to say why it's uniquely difficult for millennials or Gen Z or Gen X or whatever, but I think it's It's always been hard to honor your father and mother because the children have a front row seat, especially once they've grown and gained perspective.
They have a unique front row seat into the failures of their parents.
And so, all that being said, one pastoral note that I would say for just a wide broth of Christians seeking to honor their father and mother is the question I most often get as a pastor in relation to this topic is how do you honor a dishonorable father?
Choosing What to Emphasize00:09:47
How do you honor a dishonorable mother?
The first thing that I would say is I don't think anything is quite that black and white.
I don't think that any father or mother exclusively falls into a honor category, honorable category, or dishonorable category.
It's usually a hodgepodge of things that are honorable and things that are dishonorable.
But with those dishonorable things, I continually think of the illustration of the sons of Noah.
What we can't do as Christians, as we seek to obey this command of honoring our father and mother, is we can't be given to lies.
Live not by lies.
We cannot flatter.
We cannot gossip and we cannot slander.
Gossip is saying it can include true statements about someone, but not in their presence and in such a way that it's meant to tear them down.
It's not productive, it's not for their welfare and good.
So, gossip can be true statements, but it's outside of the presence of an individual with the intention of breaking the person down.
Slander is making quantitatively false statements about someone, but flattery, but with the intent of tearing them down, false negative statements.
Flattery, likewise, is similar to slander in the sense that it can be like gossip outside of their presence, but often flattery is actually in the person's presence.
Out of gossip, slander, and flattery, flattery is most commonly to the person's face.
And it's also false statements like slander, except it's unique in the sense that it's positive statements, saying very nice things, very, very positive things, but that are false things to the person's face in order to position yourself better, in order to gain their graces.
It's manipulation, it's trying to gain favor with someone.
And so, in our quest to honor our father and mother, we cannot be given to slander, we cannot be given to gossip, and we also cannot be given to flattery.
And the sons of Noah, what we don't see the two righteous sons doing is they don't say, they don't go around the rest of their lives saying, Our father is such an honorable man that he's never been drunk.
Our father is such an honorable man that he's never passed out naked in his tent.
They don't say positive statements that are untrue.
But what I've realized is this we don't get to choose what is true and what is false about our father and mother, but we get to choose what to emphasize.
We get to choose the headline.
We get to choose what's going to be a footnote in the story that we tell about our fathers and mothers, and what's going to be the headline of the story, what we're going to shine the spotlight on.
And we have that choice as grown children with a unique perspective, front row seat in our father and mother's lives, seeing their successes, seeing their failures that many other people did not see.
We get to choose not what's true, but we do get to choose what to share and what to emphasize, what gets the headline of the story.
And we live in a generation, I think, currently that is choosing to emphasize the failures.
We live in a deconstructing generation.
We live in the critical race theory, you know, critical theory beyond just race, but critical legal theory, critical queer theory.
It's a jackhammer, it's a deconstructive tool.
What it does is it takes something that, sure, everything has flaws, nothing's perfect, but it takes something that's generally good and it emphasizes its weaknesses and failures.
Only for the purpose of deconstructing and tearing it down with no intention of building something better in its place.
It lies and says, well, we have this grand utopia, this better substitute that will replace.
But it doesn't.
It doesn't.
All it's doing is it's taking things that are generally good, imperfect as they may be, but generally good, and emphasizing, highlighting, putting the magnifying glass over all of their faults and fractures, and making the headline of the story, America is bad, our civil fathers.
The headline of the story, the church is abusive.
And covers up this and that.
Like right now, what's happening with Dr. John MacArthur, and makes that the headline of the story.
Or families are bad and patriarchal, immediate families and households are bad and makes that the headline of the story.
And so I think that that is just an epidemic in our culture today and with my generation, younger generations today, is to deconstruct, to take the faults of systems.
And families and all these things, and make that the headline of the story.
And those things may be true.
They may be true.
But we get to choose.
We don't get to choose what's true or false, but we do get to choose what to emphasize.
I think a large lion's share of what it means to honor thy father and mother is not slander.
It's also not flattery.
It's not gossip.
But it's saying, like the righteous sons of Noah, it's covering the failures and emphasizing the successes.
And each of us have something about our mother and father that's good, that we can say that's going to get the headline.
Joel, I really appreciate that.
That's a timely word, and I've, as a guy of a younger generation, I feel that conviction as well.
I recognize that in myself and my peers.
I think you're right on there with your own counsel.
Joe, same question, I guess, which was where are some areas where we need to repent of going along with culture with regards to the fifth commandment?
Well, first, I think it's important to reiterate.
Something that Joel said earlier, and that is that as Christians, we need to be reminded as we ask and answer that question that the law of God is described in scripture as, as we heard, right and good.
And we have the metaphors of it's sweeter than honey from the honeycomb, it's more precious than gold and silver.
It is something that Is going to be for our real blessing in this life with our families and our communities now in the here and now.
These are not merely eternal blessings with some reference to the consummation.
These are about our temporal life now.
That's the goodness and the blessing of God's law.
So that when we obey it, God is not the cosmic killjoy.
When we obey God's law in the honoring of our parents as families, as a society, as a culture.
The result is very real, very concrete blessing.
And remember that Jesus, really in the Great Commission, tells us that because he says, All authority in heaven and earth is mine.
The whole of the earth is mine.
Therefore, go and disciple the nations and teach them everything I have commanded you.
And that's for the blessing of the nations.
So when we think about this and we think about the condition of our culture and what it's rejected, What it's set aside.
Perhaps the place I would start very quickly is the place where Joel left off there, related to what he was saying about critical theory and the way that what we would call sort of wokeism, wokery, jiggery wokery, as I like to call it, is inflicting our culture.
Is that one of the areas we see this commandment despised is in the disrespect that our culture has for the elderly.
We idealize youth.
We idealize youth culture.
We almost want to make adolescence a sort of semi permanent state.
I mean, it used to be something that would attract ridicule for a 60 or 70 year old man to be dressed in the fashions of a European teenager.
And see him behaving like one thinking he was hip and trendy.
But that is the way in which we have almost positioned our society.
We are afraid, we are terrified of age, of aging.
You look at the idealizing of in our culture today, look at celebrity culture as an example, but it's spread well beyond celebrity culture because they're the models, as it were.
The way we want to Botox and lift and press and suck and goodness knows what else, manipulate our own bodies to appear as though they are.
Young, when in fact they are not.
And yet scripture says, You shall rise before the gray headed or the hoary head, the King James would say.
So, there was an inherent respect for the elderly, because this is the point at which you have seen more of life.
You've gained the godly person greater maturity, wisdom, understanding.
And our culture, when it was more Christian, used to have a respect for the elderly.
Today, the elderly are increasingly despised out of sight, out of mind.
And that's related to the second thing I wanted to talk about, which was the way in which.
Caring for Aging Parents00:12:01
We have ceased to be concerned with the care for our parents.
As a culture, we no longer want to care for our parents.
We no longer want that responsibility.
Out of sight, out of mind, put the elderly away in an institution where they're no longer a bother to us.
Euthanize them, as Canada would like to do, as quickly as possible.
Get rid of the elderly.
They are an inconvenience.
Yet, of course, it was at least some.
Um, North American tribes, uh, like the um, the uh, the indigenous, I'm not sure we're even allowed to call them Eskimos anymore, are we, Ryan?
Is it um, Inuit?
Um, I'm not sure the uh, the guidebook's out being in its 17th revision right now.
Goodness knows, goodness knows what we're supposed to say now.
But some pagan cultures exposed their elderly, sent them away, uh, to die of starvation and exposure.
The Bible.
Uh, says no.
Um, the elderly, our parents are to be honored.
Now, think about this for a moment when the Lord Jesus is hanging on the cross, he's the eldest son.
One of the first things he is concerned to do at that moment of death, he's got the weight of the world literally on his shoulders, he's bearing the weight of the sins of the world, and he's concerned to say to his cousin John, John, your mother.
Mother Mary, your son.
In other words, John is responsible for your care.
And from that day, the scripture says, John took Mary into his home.
So there is an honoring of the family, there's an honoring of our parents.
And scripture gives us that command.
I was really encouraged to hear Joel refer to one of his reasons for his move from California to Texas, that it was concerned.
Care for and involvement in the life of his parents.
And many of the things he said today have been challenging and convicting, and they should feel convicting for us as we submit ourselves to the Word of God.
Abraham lived in the home of Isaac.
Isaac lived in the home of Jacob.
Jacob lived under the care of Joseph.
Now, I'm not saying that we all have to.
Take our parents into our own home, we may not be in a position to do that.
But I do think that, as a general pattern, the eldest godly son, the eldest godly child with means, is obligated to take responsibility as Jesus modeled for us at the cross and as God's law requires.
And that's why, Joe, just to interject for a moment, that's part of the reason why the eldest son would get a double portion of inheritance is because.
He had more responsibilities.
It's not just because the Father favored him, but it was because you're going to receive more blessing.
Blessing always corresponds with responsibility.
God teams these things up together, and you're going to receive more blessing because he had more responsibilities, not only to care for his own household, but he had a unique responsibility to give some return, which is good and pleasing in the sight of the Lord.
I think, you know, 1 Timothy 5 children should seek to give some return to their parents, right?
With widows, do not let the church be burdened if she has grown sons.
Let them give some return to their parents, which is good and pleasing to the Lord.
And so the eldest son would bear that chief responsibility to care for his parents.
And that seems completely absent, that notion, in our culture today.
Absolutely.
That's a great point.
And that is precisely why the eldest godly child received a double portion.
We do see, of course, at times where an ungodly child is set aside.
We see frequently in the Old Testament there where the younger son receives the blessing and then receives the responsibility with it.
And the responsibility is part of the blessing.
I've had the privilege of, for a number of years now, taking my parents into my own home because they don't have the means to.
Support themselves after many, many years as missionaries overseas.
And the blessing to my children and to my family through that has been immense.
It doesn't mean that every moment of every day isn't without its moments of challenge, because that's what it means to be human.
But the blessing has been immense.
And so I would say that that aspect, respect for elderly, care for parents, we have abdicated that in our society and we've handed it over to the state.
And the result has been the destruction of the family.
And not an appropriate care for our parents.
I mean, think about what happened in the last few years when a virus struck.
Many of our parents who were of our culture in these care homes were left on the floor to die.
We do not give to the state the responsibilities that are given to the family.
And Jesus, as I said in Mark 7, is very, very clear about this.
He accused the Pharisees of making.
Void of nullifying God's law by their tradition, in saying, Well, you know, I've given my gifts to the temple, I don't need to do anything for my parents.
And he says, You make void the law by your tradition.
And so I think if we look at those two, just those two things, honor and respect for the elderly, and the way we see that utterly collapsing, and we'd rather see them outside, out of mind, if not dead, we don't want to learn from the elderly, we don't want to respect the aged, and we've idealized youth, which the Bible doesn't do.
And we need to think about that even in the life of the church and in our families.
And then caring for our parents, I think, which is absolutely critical to a stable society, to a God honoring society.
And so to a society that's concerned with inheritance, blessing, and passing on the inheritance.
One of the reasons why our culture is in free fall is that we no longer know who we are because that has not been passed on, because the Multi generational family life has been almost completely destroyed.
And we desperately need to recover it if our society is going to survive.
No society survives the destruction of the family.
It's part of God's judgment on our apostasy that we are where we are.
But I would say those would be two critical and vital issues where we've abdicated responsibility and we've also handed the burden over to the state, who not only do a poor job of it, but they end up destroying the family.
In the process, and claim to be the elder brother and seize all the inheritance for themselves.
Right.
Well, that's what I was going to say.
We've handed the burden over to the state, and so by doing, God will not be mocked.
A man reaps what he sows.
We've handed over the burden, and God attaches the blessing to the burden.
And so, like the death tax, the estate tax, all these kinds of things that were part of the reason we're groaning underneath the tyranny of the state.
Well, what made the state so powerful?
What caused it to grow to such an oversized monster, tyrant that it's become?
Like, where did it?
Get all this power?
Well, part of it is it got a lot of money.
Where did it get that money, that blessing, that tangible physical blessing?
Because we abdicated the burden.
So we said, we don't want the burden of caring for our father and mother.
We don't want the burden for caring for our children.
We don't want the burden of educating our children.
And the state, with wicked and sinister intentions, but nonetheless, God will not be mocked.
There are certain principles baked into the world that God has made.
The state said, we'll take these burdens.
And lo and behold, they've also taken the blessing.
We'll take care of the elderly.
Now, they don't take care of them well.
In many cases in Canada, the way they take care of the elderly is like, I'll take care of that.
I'll euthanize them.
But we'll take care of the elderly.
We'll give your children an education with the welfare system.
We'll take care of your wife.
We'll take care of this.
We'll take care of that.
And lo and behold, what comes with their willingness to take the burden, even though they botch the job of actually meeting the burden, but what they do a half A halfway job, and that's being very charitable, but they do half the job of meeting the burden, but they get the whole blessing in terms of the literal financial benefit.
So they're getting all the inheritance that the eldest son would get goes to the state.
And then they do a lousy job of the burden, but just the willingness.
It's been said before that authority flocks, or it just, by default, it.
It orients to those who are willing to take responsibility.
That when a man says, you know what, I'll take care of that.
You know what, that maybe even is outside my jurisdiction, but nobody's picking up that ball.
I'll pick that up.
Okay, I'll do this and I'll do it well.
And lo and behold, I've noticed in my own life at 36 years old now, still relatively young, but as I've just been willing to take responsibility, as I've seen certain deficiencies, instead of just complaining about it, saying, I wish more people in the evangelical church would address this.
I wish there was more teaching on this.
And then say, you know what?
I don't think I'm even the best man for the job.
I don't have some of the credentials that I wish I had, but I'm going to hit the books.
I'm going to study as best I can, knowing that I'll still be incomplete in many ways.
But I'm going to look to other guys like you, Dr. Boot, and like Doug Wilson, and like Jeff Durbin, and like James White.
I'm going to, as much as I can, staff my weaknesses, surround myself by these guys, learn from them.
But I'm just going to do it.
I'm going to start a podcast.
I'm going to start a ministry.
I'm going to write a book.
I'm going to plant a church.
I'm going to I'm going to have four kids and Lord willing, have another.
And I'm going to, and I've just been willing to take these duties, these responsibilities, because I've seen the lack and the gaping holes in society and in the church at large.
Taking the willingness to take these responsibilities, all of a sudden, I can't tell you, it's like clockwork, but authority comes with it.
That all of a sudden, people, I have certain people asking my opinion who never used to care what I thought.
I have people sending in donations that, I never had before.
I have more resources just in the last two years of my life as I've taken on certain responsibilities and just been willing to take the burden, the blessing comes.
And we have essentially, as a culture, and the church particularly, and households, those two spheres of the home and the church have basically said, we don't want the burden, the duty that God gives to us, his law, and we forfeited the blessing.
And now that third sphere is 10 times the size of the other two.
And we're so quick to say it's because of their tyranny, they took it from us.
In many ways, we gave it to them.
We gave the burden, not realizing that God will not be mocked and that blessing follows blessing.
Burden.
And we gave them the burden, and they're half doing the burden, but getting the whole blessing.
And then using that blessing and all those resources to turn their sights in the gun further, and it becomes this vicious cycle.
Breaking the Cycle00:04:10
And the way to break it is not to demand the blessing that's ours.
The way to break it, the first step is to take back the burden that's ours.
Yeah.
And with it, the authority, which is a key point.
Joel, I really appreciate your time.
We've taken a goodish amount of it.
For those who are interested in checking up with you, we might have some listeners who aren't familiar with.
With you and your work, where can they go and learn more?
Right Response Ministries.
Thanks again, you guys, for having me on the show.
It's been an honor.
But Right Response Ministries is the name of the ministry outside of my local church, Covenant Bible Church.
If they happen to be in Central Texas, they may be able to come.
We're in Georgetown, Texas, Williamson County.
But the ministry that's digital and remote is Right Response Ministries.
They can go to rightresponseministries.com.
They can also, we have a free app that they could download and follow all of our content.
But most people, it seems, you know, you can find us and subscribe in any podcast platform, iTunes, Spotify.
But it seems like most people tend to follow us and find us on YouTube.
So, Right Response Ministries, YouTube.
Our three main bread and butter with the ministry is my sermon ministry, preaching ministry from the Lord's Day at Covenant Bible Church.
Every week, you'll find a full length sermon.
And then that's on Sunday.
Every Monday, you'll find a live QA that I do for about an hour.
And then every Tuesday, that's our flagship show called Theology Apply.
That's the interview format show, like what you guys are doing right now, where we've had notable guests such as Dr. Boot and Doug Wilson and James White and Jeff Durbin and Samuel Say and a host of others Meg Basham with the Daily Wire and lots of different individuals.
So, yeah, they can follow us anywhere they like podcast, website, app.
But people, for whatever reason, they seem to like YouTube.
Thanks very much, Joel.
Really appreciate you being here.
I'd like to encourage all of our listeners to go and buy your mother some flowers this week.
Joel, Joe, Dr. Boot, thanks for being on the show.
For everyone who's listening, we remind you as ever that from him and through him and to him, that's Jesus Christ, are all things.
May he alone be glorified, and we'll look forward to being with you again next week.
Can I be frank with you for just a second, right here at the end?
Look, some of you guys, you're financially supporting this ministry, and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you.
I cannot thank you enough.
However, some of you, you just, you can't afford it.
In fact, some of you, you shouldn't afford it.
Let's be honest.
I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy.
Our nation and our totalitarian political elites lost their minds over the last three years due to COVID.
We have written checks that we simply cannot cash.
It doesn't matter if people change the definition of a recession.
We are living in a recession right now, regardless.
Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs at the grocery store.
You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor should you.
But you could still help us tremendously.
I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so, Take one minute of your time.
Leave us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform iTunes, Spotify, whatever that might be.
This is the way the system works.
We want to be innocent as doves, but shrewd as vipers.
We need to be strategic.
You leave us a five star review, and our podcast shows up for more people.
And the Word of God and courageous theology applied in practical ways to every realm of life gets out there.