Children, Obey Your Parents

God's Word, the Bible, teaches children to respect, honor, and obey their parents.

COLOSSIANS 3:20 NKJ 20 Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.

EPHESIANS 6:1-3 NKJ 1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: 3 "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."

Only when we are children are we to OBEY our parents. But we should always HONOR our parents as long as we live. To honor primarily means to show respect and treat with special consideration.

1 TIMOTHY 3:4 NKJ 4 . . . having his children in submission with all reverence

Children should submit to their parents and show them respect.

Even if your parents do not serve God, you still must respect and obey them. However, God does not expect you to obey them when they tell you to sin by doing wrong things. (see Acts 5:29)

From the Old Testament we learn how serious it is for children not to submit to their parents. The punishment was very severe. In those days children who refused to submit to their parents were killed!

We are not living under the Old Testament law, but it was written to teach us. It shows us what God thinks of rebellious children.

DEUTERONOMY 21:18-21 NKJ 18 "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, 19 "then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. 20 "And they shall say to the elders of his city, `This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.' 21 "Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil person from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.

SAY THIS: It is God's will for children to obey their parents.