How Long Do I Honor?

By: Jeremy Berry

Every child grows up hearing the dreaded words from pastors and parents alike: “Honor your father and mother!” We long for the day when we will finally be adults and this command will seem like a thing of the past, when honor will no longer feel mandatory but merely a gesture of courtesy toward parents who now seem more like wise older companions. There is just one problem: the fifth commandment does not end at eighteen. We do not graduate into adulthood and out of the law of God. Our rebellious hearts may scream, “Am I not too old to obey?” The answer is both simple and complex: yes and no. Scripture is clear that the duty to honor remains, but the way that honor is expressed must change. As relationships change, so do boundaries.

The fifth commandment is a beautiful commandment, despite what our deceitful and youthful hearts may tell us. While the first four commandments are aimed directly at our duty to the Lord, and commandments six through ten govern our relationships with others, the fifth functions as something of a hinge commandment, touching both. Our parents are part of our story, for good or for ill, and honoring them requires a trust in the Lord’s sovereignty over their place in our lives, even when that is difficult. The command also reaches beyond ourselves into the ordering of human relationships. And like all of God’s commandments, it comes with no age-out clause. So how does this work?

First, we must distinguish between childhood obedience and the lifelong honor to which adults are still called. As children, our parents exercised real authority over us. We were financially dependent, our safety was in their hands, and they put food on the table. Their declaration, “Our house, our rules,” usually ended the debate. All we could protest was, “This is unfair,” and even that rarely got us very far. But adulthood changes the relationship. I am no longer financially dependent, am I? I am no longer under their authority in the same way. I can do what I want. We are all Kevin McCallister now, grown and convinced of our independence. So in what ways are we still called to honor our parents? Are we meant to surrender our autonomy, this coveted independence? As children, the boundaries were often drawn for us by circumstance. As adults, as with many things, it all feels more complicated. Like a beloved old pair of pajama pants, we do not throw the fifth commandment away as we grow older; it stretches with us, taking a different shape.

Before we consider what honor looks like in adulthood, we must first address the first obstacle: boundaries. As children, we have very few boundaries between ourselves and our parents. As infants, there are virtually none. As children grow, and especially as they enter their teenage years, healthy physical and emotional boundaries begin to develop. But it is not only age that naturally creates boundaries. Marriage and parenthood also reshape the relationship between adult children and their parents. In Ephesians 5, Paul quotes Genesis 2 and reinforces the pattern of leaving and cleaving. In that very idea, children leaving their parents and becoming one flesh with another necessarily creates a new set of boundaries. First Timothy 5:8 also helps us see this ordering of responsibility: “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Here we see two important boundaries. First, our care has an ordered priority, beginning with those closest to us rather than the world at large. Second, the members of our own household carry a particular claim upon our love, care, and provision, even above the wider circle of relatives.

Boundaries help define relationships and what may rightly be shared within them. An adult child may discuss financial trouble with a close friend, but it would not be wise to share the same troubles with the cashier at Kroger. The relationship is different, and so the boundary is different. In the same way, how we honor others is shaped by the boundaries proper to that relationship. I should not ordinarily discuss my marital struggles with my parents, because doing so can cross a boundary. Out of bounds, for all my friends who need sports illustrations in their spiritual discourse. Parents, because they are rarely able to be fully objective when it comes to their own children, will often feel compelled to protect and defend them. I have seen marriages damaged by well-meaning but meddling parents. Discerning which relationships call for which boundaries is not always easy, but it is necessary. Without healthy boundaries, relationships suffer.

We need to agree on a very important point: we honor parents not merely because of what they provide, but because of what they are. We love God for who He is. We love others because they are image bearers. And we honor parents because of the role God has given them. Honor is not the same thing as liking, approving, or enjoying a relationship. Many of us have had toxic, negligent, or even dangerous parental figures. That reality does not erase the command, though it does affect how honor is expressed. Honoring parents will look different in every relationship, though there are still certain constant themes.

1. Verbal honor: We honor our parents by speaking to them with respect. Even as adults, we are not called to scream at them, curse them, or publicly humiliate them. This does not mean we must protect them from the consequences of their own sin, but it does mean we address them in a way that recognizes their God-given place. Respect does not rule out disagreement or even serious conversation; it rules out contempt. Many parents, myself included, are not always easy to respect because we have failed in the duties God gives us in passages like Ephesians 6. Yet as adult children, we honor not because our parents are always honorable, but because we love Christ more than our pride. We honor not by pretending our parents are sinless, but by refusing to turn their sins into weapons, jokes, or gossip. Their failures should grieve us, not entertain us. There are appropriate places, within proper boundaries, where we may speak honestly about hurt, disappointment, and pain. But not everyone needs access to our parents’ failures.

2. Relational honor: The Proverbs are filled with calls to listen to wise counsel (Prov. 1:5; 12:15; 19:20). Ideally, those who have walked farther down life’s path can offer wisdom gained through years of experience. Honoring our parents means listening with humility. It does not mean we always follow their counsel. Being a parent does not make someone omniscient or even consistently wise. Yet their office as father and mother does give them a rightful place to offer counsel. Parents also need to remember that they need not speak into everything, but that is an article for another day. There is also a gracious way to express both gratitude and a lack of need for guidance in areas where a parent is overstepping. For a helpful treatment of how parents should love their adult children, see Loving Your Adult Children by Gaye Clark.

3. Support honor: As parents age, the relationship often changes again. Time humbles us all. The once-strong parent may become frail, forgetful, lonely, financially strained, or increasingly dependent on others. This raises a real question for adult children: what does honor look like when our parents are in need?

Scripture makes clear that honoring parents includes more than respectful words. It can include practical support. Jesus rebukes those who used religious excuses to avoid caring for their parents, and Paul reminds us that caring for family is a serious Christian duty (Matt. 15:3–9; 1 Tim. 5:4, 8). Yet Scripture also gives us needed order. Our first responsibility is not to meet every demand a parent makes, but to fulfill our God-given duties faithfully, beginning with our own household. The fifth commandment does not require a man to neglect his wife and children in order to please his parents. It may, however, require real sacrifice.

Sometimes that sacrifice is financial. It may mean making room in the budget, opening your home, helping with groceries, medication, transportation, or building a more sustainable plan for their care. Support is not always as simple as writing a check. Sometimes it means offering structure, oversight, or practical help rather than unrestricted access to money. There are situations in which giving money would not be honoring at all, especially where addiction, greed, or deep financial foolishness are involved. In such cases, handing over money may only become a tool for sin. Honoring our parents does not mean saying yes to every request. It means seeking their good in a wise and godly way.

Support is not only financial; it is also emotional. Aging parents are often burdened not just by bills, but by loneliness, fear, weakness, grief, and the quiet humiliation of needing help. Honoring them may mean listening patiently, showing up consistently, speaking with tenderness, and refusing to treat them like inconveniences. It may mean bearing with repeated stories, slower conversations, heightened anxieties, or the sorrows that come with diminishing strength. Emotional support does not mean becoming boundaryless or allowing a parent to control your home, marriage, or mental life. It means giving them the dignity of presence, attentiveness, and compassion.

So support honor is not a blank check, nor is it a one-size-fits-all formula. The question is not simply, “Can I give them what they are asking for?” but, “What form of support would truly honor them before God?” We honor our parents best when we seek their real good with wisdom, within proper boundaries, and with God’s glory in view.

Status honor: Parenting is not easy. Much of it feels like learning as you go. As adult children, we have good reason to honor those who hold the place of father and mother in our family. Some of that honor is expressed through symbolic gestures. We may pay for their meal as a small act of gratitude for all they once provided for us, even if they are now more financially secure than we are. We may show deference in where they sit, how we speak of them, or even in which Christian liberties we choose not to exercise in front of them. If alcohol or Harry Potter troubles their conscience, we should handle that with care and refuse to flaunt it before them. Symbolic gestures matter. They are rarely invisible. Ask the wife whose husband casually removes his wedding ring; symbols speak. In the same way, visible gestures of honor toward our parents do good not only for them, but also for our own children, who are learning from us that God intends father and mother to be treated with dignity.

Boundaries are not meant to dishonor; they are meant to protect and strengthen a relationship. Parents may struggle with this at first, and adult children should expect that struggle and respond with compassion. After all, parents go from holding a helpless infant, who begins life with virtually no boundaries at all, to watching that same child establish more and more of them over time. To a parent, that shift can feel sudden. Yet without healthy boundaries, relationships are often not preserved but strained, fractured, and ultimately dishonored.

I do want to spend time on cases where our parents are abusers. How can we honor them, especially when their conduct seems to strip them of any claim to honor? It is important to remember that we are called to honor our parents in the Lord. As stated before, this means parents do not have the authority to call us to sin, to hide injustice, or to protect evil. If parents are or were guilty of abuse, then it would be a dishonor to God not to report that abuse. Our God is a God of justice, and to pursue justice is not dishonor. Acts 5:29 is clear: “We must obey God rather than men,” even when those men are our parents. Honoring does not mean giving access. If an abuser who held the role of parent has violated that sacred duty, it is not safe or wise to bring them into your home or near the members of your family. In such cases, honor may take a very narrow form. We honor not by pretending evil did not happen, but by telling the truth, refusing personal vengeance, seeking justice, maintaining wise distance, and praying for repentance. Some parents, by their wickedness, forfeit trust, closeness, and access, even if they do not cease to be father or mother in name.

So how long do we honor? As long as we seek to honor the Lord. Honor does not expire with age, failure, or changing seasons of life. It does not vanish with marriage, though marriage does reshape its boundaries. Honor adapts to the relationship, but it does not disappear. Scripture calls us to outdo one another in showing honor, and our parents are no exception. The form that honor takes may differ from one relationship to another, but it must always flow from a worshipful heart, a submissive heart, for God’s glory and for the good of those around us.