Honoring The Elderly

It is sad to say that we really don't honor and reverence our parents like the Bible says we should. Only 1/2 of Americans think it is the children's responsibility to look after our parents and yet there is not one of us who isn't going to grow older and need help.(Unless the Lord chooses different).

Chinese people respect and honor their parents. It is a cultural obligation to look after the elderly in Asian countries. In these cultures, parents see themselves in their children, and Chinese, especially, are acutely aware that their offspring provide a continuum to their lives. Children who do not honor their parents are considered “worse than animals” in China. These strong ties are not made out of Christian service and yet we know and feel a special kind of respect for Asian cultures that know how to respect their elders. We Christians know its right. Its very sad when a predominantly atheist culture adheres to Biblical principals stronger than a country where virtually every home has a Bible and every Bible includes Exodus 12:20.


In America we all feel like we are autonomous. We stand alone. We are in a word~Selfish. Aging parents may hinder our careers, our love life's, our own personal freedoms. Its a cycle that we Americans have started and now it is accepted as the norm. To dump our kids in daycare to be cared for by strangers for the first 5 years and then onto public school where again our children are taught by humanistic underpaid strangers. We parents are dumping our children with the state, its no wonder that our children grow up and feel no guilt when they dump their parents with the same government that they were raised by.

Exodus 20:12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

Eph6:1Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. 2Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;

Duet 21:18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.