A Biblical Look at Honoring Mom

Madelene Miller walks us through scripture to show how some well-known people in the Bible honored their mothers. For example, Samuel made Ramah, the home town of his parents his home as an adult (1 Samuel 2:15-17). David asked the king of Moab to let his parents stay there away from Saul’s murderous hand (1 Samuel 22:3). And, Jesus provided for the care of His mother when He was on the cross (John 19:26-27). Honoring your mom has scriptural roots that you can apply each and every day.

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:00):
Good morning to you, Madeleine.

S2 (00:02):
Good morning. Good morning. It's such a pleasure to be
with you.

S3 (00:06):
Well, Madeleine, we are running up against Mother's Day. It
is like right around the corner. And wanted to know
if you could maybe just share some wisdom. Scriptural wisdom?
Just about moms.

S2 (00:18):
Oh, I'd be happy to. Let me ask you, did
you decorate your house like you do for Christmas? For
Mother's Day?

S3 (00:24):
Well, does it count if I didn't take the Christmas
decorations down yet and they're still up from Christmas? Does
that count?

S2 (00:32):
No. Well that counts. I did the same thing, too.
But Mother's Day, although we don't put decorations usually outside,
it does rank very high in celebrated holidays in the
United States. Uh, do you know that it is third
in the number of cards purchased? And they're looking for
about 113 million cards being sent. So if you haven't

(00:55):
gotten yours in the mail yet, you might want to
do that. Uh, it's third highest in church attendance, because
many families take that opportunity to worship together at the
mother's church. A lot of times. And let me ask
you this. Take a guess, a wild guess. What do
you think? That Mother's Day ranks first in chocolate.

S1 (01:16):
Um.

S2 (01:18):
Just.

S1 (01:20):
Just flowers.

S2 (01:22):
Well, that's a good idea in terms of, uh, giving gifts,
but it ranks first in eating out. Are the National
Restaurant Association ranks and keeps track of such things. Says
that Mother's Day is the busiest holiday for eating out
for restaurants, and it's followed closely by Valentine's Day. So

(01:46):
Mother's Day is a highly celebrated holiday. And mother's art,
they're deserving of such special honor because parenting in general
is not an easy job. Um, there was a survey
conducted by Pew Research, and about 66% of the mothers
in the survey said that being a parent is harder

(02:06):
than what they thought it would be. No surprises there.
You know, think about it. Initially, the parents are amazed
and their awed that this tiny person who is so
cute and soft and cuddly. But you're soon confronted with
the realization that this this infant doesn't want to sleep
when you do. And the baby's way of communicating is

(02:28):
just crying until he gets what he wants. And then
it's a full time job. 24 over seven. No time
off for holidays. In fact, the workload during the holidays
is sometimes even greater. And as you know, Tom, being
a parent, the responsibilities of parenthood are massive.

S3 (02:48):
They are. And you talked about the crying nature of
these children that continues until their 30s, I think.

S2 (02:55):
Oh you're right. It goes on through, you know, through Childhood,
all that. You're right. And then as a parent, you
know you're jointly responsible for the overall care and safety
and schooling of your child. And then Christian parents, in addition,
are responsible to teach their children about God. And parents

(03:16):
have the responsibility of you have to get to know
this person who has a mind of their own, a
personality that may be totally different from yours. And you
have to train this person in godliness in praying that
these lessons will last a lifetime.

S1 (03:33):
Today we're talking about mothers. And, Madeleine, we were just
about to dive in to those well-known people in the
Bible who did some really good things for their moms.

S2 (03:46):
Absolutely. You know, the Bible tells us to honor your
father and mother. And we have some good examples of
exactly how some people did that. Um, Samuel, for instance,
he was an individual who had he had a childhood,
unlike most. You remember his mother, Hannah. She prayed for
a son and promised to give that son to the

(04:07):
Lord if he answered her prayer. Well, she did conceive,
and she gave her child Samuel to be raised by
Eli the priest. And because of her promise, after the
child was raised. She brought him to Eli. So young Samuel,
he ministered before the Lord. But his mother, she made
him a little robe and took it to him. Each
year when she went up with her husband to offer

(04:28):
the yearly sacrifice. So here's she visited him. She visited
Samuel when he was a child, and I believe he
honored and visited her as an adult. We know in
Samuel chapter seven that Samuel as an adult, judged Israel
all his life, and he also made a yearly circuit.

(04:49):
It was about 40 miles, and the circuit was from
Bethel to giggle to mitzvah. And then the Bible says
he would return to Ramah to his home. It's his hometown.
Vermont was the home of his parents. And I would
imagine as a dutiful son, he would visit his mother.
And she brought him clothing when he was a child.

(05:11):
And she was blessed by his presence when he was
a man. So that's that's Samuel. But then there's David.
David honored his parents and cared for them also. Um,
we all know about David and Goliath and all that,
but when it had been confirmed by Jonathan that King
Saul's son, that Saul wanted to kill David, then David,

(05:34):
you know, he ran for his life. And Scripture tells us,
people who are in debt or upset gathered to David,
as well as his brothers and his father's household household.
Now think about it. Life on the run and living
in a cave may be all right for young warriors,
but David's concern was not only for his own life,

(05:54):
but for the safety of his mother and his father.
And You think being the parents of a wanted fugitive
could be a potentially dangerous situation for its parents? And
so he was he was unstable, right? So it's not
unreasonable to think that he might use David's parents as
pawns to get to him. So David asked the king

(06:17):
of Moab, and you'll remember that David does have connections
to Moab, because Ruth was his great grandmother and she
was a moabite. So he asked the King of Moab
to allow his parents to stay there in Moab. So
David did what he could to provide for his mother
during a serious time in his life, when their safety
may have been challenged. And then finally, Jesus. Jesus is

(06:41):
a perfect example of in life and godliness, and he
provided for his mother. You know, when he was on
the cross finishing his work for the redemption of mankind,
he saw his mother Mary standing there, and he commissioned
his disciple John to take care of her. Nelson, John 19.
So each of these scenarios from Scripture. Each child honored

(07:06):
his mother by providing something that would be appreciated and
needed by his parents.

S1 (07:13):
I really appreciate you going through Scripture to show us
a specific ways that people did honor their parents, because
we know that that's part of the commandments. One of
the Ten Commandments is to honor your father and mother,
but to see that these men particularly did this through
provision and protection of their parents. And these are some

(07:35):
things that we can take into account even if you
don't have a great relationship with your parent. Right?

S2 (07:42):
Absolutely. And in fact, when you hear the commandment back
in in Ephesians chapter six, verses two and three, God says,
honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment
with a promise, so that it may go well with you,
and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.
and there are no exceptions, stated.

S3 (08:02):
Madeline Miller is our guest. She's here talking about moms
and about Mother's Day. But for some, Madeline, this is
more of a difficulty because their relationship with their mothers
maybe wasn't the best.

S2 (08:17):
You know that. And that is hard. That is very,
very difficult because we just want to shower our mother
with flowers and gifts and things of that sort. But
if we saw what happened with those biblical characters, the
honoring wasn't necessarily in giving just gifts. And there are
some people who have had some difficult situations with their parents.

(08:39):
So if you have one of those, one of the
ways that you can honor your parent is by praying
for them. You know, you have seen some something that
you have considered that is, uh, maybe, perhaps wrong treatment
during your childhood, maybe you felt abandoned. Whatever it is,
pray for your parent and then also pray for yourself

(09:01):
that you can forgive them because God doesn't give us
any any outs in either one of those. He says,
forgive because you have been forgiven. And then he says,
honor because I ask you to honor our mothers is
there's various ways of doing that, aside from just flowers and,

(09:21):
and and gifts and calling them and telling them I
love you. Um, hopefully you can get to that point,
but it's a way of life, and that prayer can
be a way of life. And we saw that in
the lives of Samuel, David and Jesus. But for those
of us who can't celebrate our mothers, then Mother's Day
is a good extension of that way of life, you know,

(09:42):
so you can take time to celebrate your mom, you know,
giving her extra recognition, praise or admiration on this day.
Set aside just for that, and then making that a
continuation of the regular honor and respect. You shower on her,
you know, call her. Tell her you love her. remind
her of something that she said or did that made
a notable impact on you. Bring attention to a funny

(10:06):
incident or a challenging or scary situation that brought you
closer together. Do something that's meaningful to her, but also
as you're showing your mom that she is loved and appreciated. Also,
be sensitive to those for whom Mother's Day may be painful.
Like the people we just talked about. But I'm thinking

(10:27):
about also those people who are recently bereaved, those who
have lost their child, those who are trying to conceive
but haven't. Those who are estranged from their children and
those who are prodigals. James 127 instructs us to look
after the orphans and widows. And then as we do
those things, we model the behavior we want our children

(10:50):
to emulate, as well as modeling actions for others who
also may be watching us. There is a song we
used to sing in child evangelism clubs, and part of
the refrain goes, don't you know, Christian, you're a sermon
in shoes, and we are a sermon in shoes. Because
our walk, our manner of life speaks louder than our

(11:13):
talk to us. So Paul, given instructions for right living,
said in Titus two seven he said, set an example
by doing what is good. And then in first Timothy 412,
Paul encouraged Timothy to set an example in speech and conduct,
and love and faith and in purity, and we should

(11:34):
do the same. So this Mother's Day, honor your mother.
Pray for her. If you even have a good relationship
with her, and you honor her, as we've been instructed
in Ephesians six and Exodus 20, but then also remember
other mothers in your sphere of influence and overall just
be a reflection of a lot of the love God

(11:57):
has for his people.