Respecting Both Sides of the Family Heritage
Ray and I are grateful for the many ways that God taught us about family. He used mentors. He used church classes. He used retreats and seminars. We sat at the feet of excellent teachers, and we humbly taught classes ourselves, realizing our own need for instruction.
With all of that, I have realized over the years that the parenting Ray and I gave our children was often a reflection of our childhoods. God taught us to respect the many good things we learned from our parents and to use those things to bless our children.
I encourage you to honor your parents and your husband’s parents by taking the very best of what they passed on to you and making it part of your children’s lives. Just because one spouse’s parents did something differently doesn’t necessarily make it wrong or inferior. No parent is perfect. Some are much farther from perfect than others, but God wants us to honor them anyway. Not only is this God’s command, it is also a way to love your spouse and your children.
Prejudice can rear its ugly head in many places. One of those places is in the hearts of people who think something is wrong or inferior simply because it is different from what seems best to them only because it feels familiar.
Merriam-Webster defines respectable as “decent or correct in character or behavior” and honorable as “deserving of respect or high regard: deserving of honor.” However, God commands us to respect and honor even those who don’t fit those definitions of respectable and honorable.
Honor all people, love the brotherhood,
fear God, honor the king.
1 Peter 2:17
Servants, be submissive to your masters
with all respect,
not only to those who are good and gentle,
but also to those who are unreasonable.
1 Peter 2:18
I like this three-generation portrait from a few years after the Civil War. Artist Eastman Johnson believed it to be his best group portrait. Alfrederick Hatch was a broker on Wall Street at the time and later because president of the New York Stock Exchange. He and his wife and children are gathered in the library of the family home on Park Avenue in New York City, along with two members of the preceding generation. For this painting, the Metropolitan Museum of Art online collection showcases the whole painting and also features four details from it.
The Hatch Family, 1870–71,
by Eastman Johnson
courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
gift of Frederic H. Hatch, 1926
1 Timothy includes a beautiful passage about family relationships. Paul is not directly teaching Timothy how family members are to treat each other, but rather how Timothy should treat older and younger men and older and younger women. In doing so, Paul assumes relationships between members of one’s family to be honoring and respectful. The Bible is clear about how we are to treat our own parents.
Honor your father and mother
(which is the first commandment with a promise),
so that it may be well with you,
and that you may live long on the earth.
Ephesians 6:2-3
The passage in 1 Timothy offers instruction that could greatly benefit those struggling with in-law relations. A genuine attitude of respect and honor goes a long way.
Do not sharply rebuke an older man,
but rather appeal to him as a father,
to the younger men as brothers,
the older women as mothers,
and the younger women as sisters, in all purity.
1 Timothy 5:1-2
God’s teaching always gives us the tools we need to do what is best for others and for ourselves.
Grace and peace be multiplied to you
in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
seeing that His divine power has granted to us
everything pertaining to life and godliness,
through the true knowledge of Him
who called us by His own glory and excellence.
2 Peter 1:2-3