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Monday, August 17 2009
The Fifth Commandment:
"20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee." (Exodus 20:12 KJV)
The first four of the Ten Commandments instruct how to recognize, worship and obey the only true God. The next six Commandments instruct how to live in peace with our fellow humans - beginning with parents (birth parents, adopted parents, or legal guardians - as it has been through all of human history), the first humans that we learn to be "people" with.
Violation of the Fifth Commandment was a death penalty offense:
"21:18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: 21:19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; 21:20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. 21:21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear." (Deuteronomy 21:18-21 KJV)"21:15 And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death ... 21:17 And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death." (Exodus 21:15,17 KJV)
Honoring parents is not however a "one way street" - parents have a responsibility to conduct themselves so as to be worthy of honor:
"6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. 6:2 Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; 6:3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:1-4 KJV)"18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die [see Dead Souls]. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." (Ezekiel 18:20 KJV)
Even as He was in agony on the cross, Jesus Christ obeyed the Fifth Commandment by seeing to the care of His mother:
"19:25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. 19:26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! 19:27 Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home." (John 19:25-27 KJV) (see also Aunt Mary?)
The Fifth Commandment, which deals with those who gave us physical life, also applies ultimately to how we may be born into spiritual life (see Born Again, How and When?), in which God is the Father, the Holy Spirit of God is the means of "spiritual conception," and the Church (as an entity, composed of potential, as yet unborn Children Of God - see People or Place?) is the mother:
"6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name." (Matthew 6:9 KJV)"3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John 3:6 KJV) (see Spiritual Conception)
"4:19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you ... 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." (Galatians 4:19,26 KJV) (see Daughter of Zion)
Fact Finder: Is Jesus Christ "the first-born among many brethren"?
Romans 8:29
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This Day In History, August 17
1424: The English fought the Scots and French at the Battle of Verneuil during the Hundred Years' War.
1585: Spanish forces, led by Duke of Parma, took Antwerp after a 14-month siege in the Dutch War of Liberation.
1590: John White, the leader of 117 colonists sent in 1587 to Roanoke Island (North Carolina) to establish a colony, returned from a trip to England to find the settlement deserted. No trace of the settlers is ever found.
1743: The Peace of Abo was signed, ending the Russo-Swedish War of 1741-43.
1812: Napoleon Bonaparte's army defeated the Russians at the Battle of Smolensk during the Russian retreat to Moscow.
1833: The first steam ship to cross the Atlantic entirely on its own power, the Canadian ship Royal William, began its journey from Nova Scotia to The Isle of Wight.
1945: Indonesia claimed independence from the Netherlands with the setting up the Provisional Indonesian Republican Government.
1962: Peter Fechter, 18, was shot by East German guards as he attempted to flee across the Berlin Wall. Left to bleed to death, his case was the most notorious in the history of the Wall. In July 1996, two former guards were charged with manslaughter.
1969: Dr. Philip Blaiberg died in South Africa, 19 months and 15 days after receiving a heart transplant, a survival record at the time.
1987: Nazi war criminal Rudolph Hess committed suicide by hanging with a lamp cord, at age 93, after 46 years in Spandau Prison. He had been the only inmate of the prison for the last 20 years of his life.
