Thus God’s commandment falls absolutely to the ground, unwittingly, and ostensibly for good reasons. Then is fulfilled that which is written in the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, that the children are destroyed by their own parents [Isa. 57:5; Jer. 7:31; 32:35]. They do what King Manasseh did. This king sacrificed his son to the idol Molech and burned him.⁴⁷ What else is it but to sacrifice one’s own child to an idol and burn it when parents train their children more in the love of the world than in the love of God, and let their children go their own way and get burned up in worldly pleasure, love, enjoyment, lust, goods, and honor, but let God’s love and honor and the love of eternal blessings be extinguished in them?

O how perilous it is to be a father or mother, where only flesh and blood are supreme! Indeed, it is because parents are commanded to teach their children that the knowledge and keeping of the first three and the last six commandments depend on this commandment. As Psalm 78[:5–6] says, “How strictly has God commanded our fathers to make known his commandments to their children, that the generation to come might know them and declare them to their children’s children.” This is also the reason God bids us honor our parents, that is, to love them with fear; for that other love is without fear, therefore, it is more dishonor than honor.

Now see whether everyone does not have enough good works to do, whether he be father or child. But we, blind men that we are, neglect such works as these and seek elsewhere all sorts of other works which are not commanded. (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.83).

3. There is still another kind of dishonoring of parents, much more dangerous and subtle than this first, [a dishonoring] which decks itself out and lets itself be regarded as a true honoring of parents. That is when a child has its own way and the parents allow it to do so out of natural love. In this case they honor one another and love one another. On all sides it is a precious thing; the mother and father are pleased and the child is pleased.

This plague is so common that instances of the first kind of dishonoring are very rarely seen. This second kind of dishonoring arises from the fact that the parents have been blinded and neither know nor honor God in the sense of the first three commandments. For this reason they cannot see what the children lack, or how they ought to teach them and bring them up. It is only to please men and to get ahead that they train their children for worldly honors, pleasure, and possessions. The children like this, and, of course, they obey very gladly without any back talk. (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.82-83).

2. This work appears easy, yet few see it rightly. For where the parents are truly godly and love their children not just in human fashion, but (as they ought) instruct and direct them by words and works to serve God in the first three commandments, then in these eases the child’s own will is constantly broken. The child must do, not do, or put up with whatever his own nature would gladly have otherwise. Because of this he finds occasion to despise his parents, murmur against them, or worse. Love and fear depart when God’s grace is not there. Likewise, when parents quite properly—though at times unjustly—punish and chastise, the soul’s salvation is not imperiled; the evil nature is just unwilling to accept it. Besides all this, some are so wicked as to be ashamed of their parents because of their poverty, lowly birth, ugliness, or dishonor, and allow these things to influence them more than the high commandment of God, who is above all things and who has, with benevolent intent, given them such parents, to exercise and try them in his commandment. But the matter becomes still worse when the child in turn has children of his own. Then love for them increases, while the love and honor due to the parents declines.

But what is said and commanded of parents must also be understood of those who, when the parents are dead or not there, take their place, such as friends, relatives, godparents, temporal lords, and spiritual fathers. For everybody must be ruled and subject to other men. So we see here again how many good works are taught in this commandment, for in it all our life is made subject to other men. That is the reason obedience is so highly praised, and all virtue and good works are included in it” (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.82).

The first work is that we should honor our own father and mother. This honoring does not consist in merely showing them all deference. It means that we obey them, have regard for what they do and what they say, esteem them highly, give way to them, and accept what they say. It means that we endure their treatment of us without complaint, so long as it is not contrary to the first three commandments, and, in addition, provide them with food, clothing, and shelter when they are in need. For it is not without purpose that he has said, “Thou shalt honor them.” He does not say, “Thou shalt love them,” although it means that as well. But honor is higher than mere love, and includes within it a kind of fear which unites with love and has such an effect upon a man that he fears offending them more than he fears the ensuing punishment. It is just as there is fear in the honor we pay a holy place, and yet we do not flee from it as from a punishment, but draw all the more near to it. True honor is such a fear mingled with love. The other kind of fear that is without love is the fear of those things which we despise or avoid, e.g., the fear of the hangman or of punishment. There is no honor in that, for it is fear without love: in fact, it is a fear mixed with hatred and hostility. We have a proverb of St. Jerome about this: What we fear, we also hate. God does not want to be feared or honored with that kind of fear, nor does he want our parents honored with this kind of fear, but rather with the first kind, the kind mingled with love and confidence” (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.81).