It is sometimes emphasized that the command to honour your father and mother isn’t just about biology.

Since Jesus’ followers thought of themselves as family and called one another “brothers and sisters,” they also tried to honour older men and women as fathers and mothers, especially those who didn’t have someone younger to help them.

One of the places we see this is in 1 Timothy 5:1-2: “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.”

Notice how they honoured people as fathers and mothers even if they weren’t biologically related.

In fact, caring for older individuals became a hallmark of the faith. According to Patricia Cox Miller in her book Women in Early Christianity, this inspired the creation of hostels and hospices, hospitals and widows’ programs. “[E]ven the most secular aid agency in the West today finds its intellectual roots in the innumerable Christian charitable orders of late antiquity and, ultimately, in the explicit teaching of Moses, Jesus, and the apostles in the ancient and classical periods.”*

There can be a tendency today to turn inward—to focus on our own immediate needs and to neglect the needs of others, including those who are older and have fewer people to help them. Let’s resist that trend. Sometimes this includes supporting a program that helps those in need. And sometimes it is simply being available and willing to help when a need arises. 

“Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers…”

Notes:

-“What does it actually mean to honour my parents?” Click here. Sermon.
-*As quoted in: John Dickson, A Doubter’s Guide to the Ten Commandments (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 114-15.
-Bible quotes are from the NIV.