How Not to Treat Your Father and Your Mother
Exodus 20:12 says, “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.” That is the fifth commandment, and it is not merely a commandment for little children. There may come a time when a grown child leaves his parents’ home, marries, and establishes a household of his own. In that sense, the relationship changes. But there is never a time when God says that we may stop honoring our father and our mother.
Genesis 37 gives us one of the clearest examples in Scripture of how not to treat our parents. Jacob’s sons were grown men. These were not little boys who acted foolishly because they lacked maturity. They were adults, and yet their hatred, envy, deception, and cruelty brought terrible sorrow upon their father.
The first lesson we need to learn is that we dishonor our parents when we allow hatred and envy to grow between brothers and sisters.
Joseph’s brothers hated him. Genesis 37 tells us that when they saw that their father loved Joseph, “they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.” Then Joseph told them his dreams, and their hatred increased.
Now, hatred does not suddenly appear out of nowhere. Hatred and envy often arise because somebody believes another person has received an advantage that he did not receive. Sometimes that advantage is real; sometimes it is merely perceived. But once envy takes root, it begins poisoning the heart.
Jacob gave Joseph the coat of many colors. Joseph also dreamed that one day his family would bow before him. His brothers saw all of this and became jealous.
But there was another reason Joseph stood out. Joseph demonstrated character.
When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was working with his brothers, and Genesis 37 tells us that he “brought unto his father their evil report.” I do not know exactly what those brothers were doing. The Bible does not tell us. But whatever they were doing was wrong, and Joseph refused to participate.
Joseph would not compromise his principles merely to be accepted by his brothers.
And let me tell you something: when people are doing wrong and you refuse to go along with them, they may begin to despise you for it. They may call you self-righteous. They may make fun of you. They may accuse you of thinking you are better than they are. But Joseph was not wrong for refusing to participate in wickedness.
Neither was he simply gossiping when he told his father. Joseph brought the matter to the person who had the authority to deal with the problem.
There is another important lesson here. Sin affects our behavior.
Joseph’s brothers hated him so much that they could no longer even speak peaceably to him. They physically possessed the ability to speak civilly, but hatred had taken such control of their hearts that they would not do it.
That is what sin does.
Hatred leads somewhere. Envy leads somewhere. Bitterness leads somewhere. People do not normally wake up one morning and commit some terrible act without anything preceding it. Sin grows. One sin leads to another, and what once seemed small can eventually produce tragedy.
Proverbs 14:30 says, “A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.”
Envy is especially dangerous because envy does not merely say, “I wish I had what you have.” Envy says, “If I cannot have it, I do not want you to have it either.”
Joseph’s brothers did not simply want Joseph’s position. They wanted Joseph and his dreams destroyed.
When brothers and sisters spend their lives hating one another, competing with one another, resenting one another, and trying to destroy one another, they are not merely sinning against each other. They are dishonoring their father and their mother.
Now look at Joseph’s attitude toward his father.
Jacob told Joseph to go and see how his brothers were doing. Joseph’s response was simply, “Here am I.”
He did not complain.
He did not whine.
He did not make excuses.
His father gave him a responsibility, and Joseph went to do it.
When Joseph arrived at Shechem and discovered that his brothers were not there, he could have returned home. He could have said, “Dad, I tried. They were gone.”
But he did not.
He discovered they had gone to Dothan, so he continued looking for them. Joseph intended to finish the task his father had given him.
There is a lesson many of us need to learn: finish what you have been given to do. It may require extra work. It may be inconvenient. It may take longer than you expected. But there is honor in doing a job properly and seeing it through.
Joseph honored his father.
His brothers did exactly the opposite.
And that brings me to perhaps the greatest sin those brothers committed against Jacob: deliberate deception.
They saw Joseph coming and began plotting against him. Eventually they sold him into slavery. Then they took Joseph’s coat, dipped it in the blood of an animal, carried it to their father, and allowed Jacob to reach the conclusion they wanted him to reach.
Jacob said, “It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.”
Their deception worked perfectly.
Jacob believed Joseph was dead.
But think about what those sons then had to do. They had to stand there while their father mourned. They watched him tear his clothes. They watched him put on sackcloth. They watched him grieve day after day.
The Bible says, “And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted.”
Think about that.
The very men who knew Joseph was alive pretended to comfort their father because they wanted him to continue believing Joseph was dead.
How could a child do something like that to a parent?
And this was not a deception that lasted two days or two weeks.
Joseph was seventeen when he was sold. He was thirty when he stood before Pharaoh. Then came seven years of plenty, followed by two years of famine before his family arrived in Egypt. That means Jacob’s sons allowed their father to believe Joseph was dead for approximately twenty-two years.
Twenty-two years!
They watched their father carry that grief and did not tell him the truth.
We need to understand that deception is not merely telling a lie. Deception is deliberately creating a false reality in another person’s mind.
Young people need to understand this.
If you tell your parents you are going one place while you intend to go somewhere else, that is deception.
If you tell them you will be with certain friends and then secretly go with people you know they have forbidden you to associate with, that is deception.
If you promise to do something while knowing you have no intention of doing it, that is deception.
And minor deception prepares the heart for greater deception. Little sins prepare the way for bigger sins. Little acts of disobedience can eventually become open rebellion.
God takes dishonoring parents seriously.
When the Bible speaks of cursing father or mother, we sometimes imagine someone shouting curse words at his parents. Certainly abusive speech can be part of it, but the biblical idea goes much deeper. To curse can involve treating another person lightly, despising him, dishonoring him, or treating him as though he has little worth.
You can speak politely while dishonoring your parents by your actions.
Jesus dealt with this in Matthew 15 and Mark 7. Men were using religious tradition as an excuse for refusing to provide for their elderly parents. They could claim their resources had been dedicated to God and therefore could not be used to help their father or mother.
Our Lord condemned that.
First Timothy 5:4 says children are to “shew piety at home, and to requite their parents.” To requite means to repay.
Think about it.
Your parents cared for you when you could not care for yourself. They fed you when you could not feed yourself. They clothed you. They protected you. They cared for you when you were sick. They provided for you while you were helpless.
Then the years pass.
You become strong, and they become weak.
You become independent, and perhaps they begin needing assistance.
God says there comes a time when children have the privilege and responsibility of returning that care.
Our parents are not perfect. There are no perfect parents. They make mistakes. They sin. Some parents may not even know the Lord.
But they are still our parents.
Now is the time to honor them.
Now is the time to communicate.
Now is the time to forgive.
Now is the time to work through differences where possible.
Now is the time to show love.
One day they will not be here.
And remember this: we reap what we sow. If we spend our lives dishonoring our parents, what example are we giving our own children? If we want our children to love us, honor us, and care for us when we are old, then they ought to see us loving, honoring, and caring for our parents today.
God said, “Honour thy father and thy mother.”
That commandment does not expire when we turn eighteen, thirty, fifty, or seventy.
There is a right way to treat our parents, and there is a wrong way.
Let us determine, by the grace of God, to honor them while we still have the opportunity.