Exodus 20"12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.”
The big one comes first. That is often the case in lists in the Bible. After the four commandments about our relationship with God, the fifth one, the first in the list of those dealing with our relationships with other people, has to do with how we treat our parents. Notice the difference in the structure of this commandment from the remaining commandments. If we do not learn to obey and honor our parents, we end up doing these other things. Notice as well the "catch-all" phrasing of the last commandment. We want everything we do not have. There is a correlation between a lack of honor for parents, which leads to a lack of respect for others, which then allows our hardened hearts to want and expect anything and everything, and be willing to do anything to get it. So, what is/was your relationship to your parents like? What are the results?
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