The Commandment With A Promise

It's that time of the year when high school seniors start to hear whether they have been accepted by this or that university. My granddaughter Cassie just returned from a trip to Boston with her parents. She has been accepted by M.I.T. and is excited about what the next years of her education hold for her. She sent me an email, saying she'd be posting her Boston photos on Facebook soon. In addition, she sent a family photo taken in their back yard during the recent Easter holiday. 

Of course, I made the photo my computer's desktop display. Now every time I open up, I see my daughter Cheryl, her husband Derrick, Cassie, her brother Shawn and his fiance Marian, all standing with Sylvia and me, smiling. I studied their faces, particularly the noses. Cassie has a nose just like her mother's and Shawn has one like Sylvia's. I couldn't locate anyone with one quite like my own hang-down type. 

All that got me thinking about family and the way the Lord God has ordered life on this earth. That also jibed well with my meditation one morning last week on Jesus' comments about honoring one's parents in Matthew 15 and again in Matthew 19. He referenced the commandment given through Moses in the days of the Exodus, "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you." The command was repeated shortly before the Children of Israel entered the promised land: "Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you."

As has often been noted, this is the first commandment with a promise: "that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you." Like many, I've often wondered what the promise means? Does it mean that we'll each receive the blessing of a long life if we honor and respect our parents? If so, it does not seem to work out. I know many who so honored their parents and yet died long before old age. What then? 

I believe there are several clues to the meaning hidden in the text. The first is in the pronoun you. It is a plural pronoun. Consequently it refers to the entire people, not to each individual. It refers to the lifestyle and customs of the people. If they treasure and hold parenthood and family in high regard, the LORD will smile upon them. 

The land was the land given to them by God's promise. Specifically it referred to that area we since have learned to call the Holy Land, stretching from Egypt to Damascus. The Hebrew has two words for land, eretz and adamah. In the case of this commandment, the word adamah is used. Adamah refers to land that is arable, farming land. Since Israel's was primarily an agricultural culture, the promise had to do with God's blessings upon their vineyards, olive orchards, grain fields and the like. 

Finally, the blessing has to do with living in this land described in the Bible as good and spacious, flowing with milk and honey. If they respected this command along with the other commands and teachings given to them, they would continue to live and prosper in this land. The LORD of the covenant, the One who had rescued and redeemed them from bondage and slavery, would bless them over the years. 

It is a good and important lesson, one we do well to learn wherever we may be. This has especially to do with those of us who have accepted the Good News of Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. He is that LORD of whom the commandment speaks. He has set us aside to honor Him in the land where He has called us to be. In the United States that no longer refers to a land whose economy is based upon agriculture. Nor is ours a rural life. We are predominantly an urban culture. Yet in this land we continue to marry and have children. 

The LORD's blessings rests upon this fundamental institution. I will not lay out the complete details of this teaching. Suffice it to say there are several vital implications for us in our day. 

Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. There is no other definition in God's Word. It can never be redefined as the union of two men or two women or any other combination. 

Children are to be brought up in such a family. It is not always possible. The LORD calls upon some single moms or dads to raise their children without a spouse. Yet children need the guidance and direction of both men and women. Here the extended family and the local congregation of families have a duty toward the children. We need to give careful thought to this in these days of artificial insemination. 

And the children, in turn, have a duty toward their parents to honor, respect, revere and hold in high regard those whom the LORD has placed over them. This refers first to one's biological parents, but it does not stop there. It refers as well to grandparents, aunts, uncles and all older members of the family. But then it goes beyond to spiritual parents, teachers and pastors. And finally it refers to our parents in the civil realm, those in authority over us, police, judges, legislators and soldiers. 

This is the ordering of human life set down by our Creator and LORD. Acknowledge it, follow it and we will all receive His blessings. Ignore it, make up our own rules, and He will withdraw His hand of blessing from us. 

Oh, by the way, I checked some other family photos. I believe my second son Nathan is the only one who has a nose anywhere close to mine. Strange.