On the Path of Everyday Life – The Fifth Commandment

On the Path of Everyday Life

Exodus 20:12

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.”

“Honor” has a kind of formal-sounding aspect: give an award, celebrate an achievement, show public homage and respect. But the honor that is envisioned in the fifth commandment is more down-to-earth.

We show honor to others in a wide variety of ways–by our speech, giving others our undivided attention, remembering individual and personal things, refusing to gossip or slander, commenting on a job well done, giving simple but sincere compliments, offering words of encouragement and affirmation. How rare such “everyday honors” are in our self-centered society!

Love for neighbors begins in simple acts of honor, which we may discover along the path of everyday life.  But we need to be thinking about them, praying about them, and even planning in advance the ways we will honor the people God brings into our lives each day (Heb. 10:25).

Today, who is a candidate for your honor?  What are you planning in order to love your neighbors by honoring them?

Daily meditation in the Law of God helps us along the path of holiness, righteousness, and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compilation of the Mosaic Law for contemporary believers, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.