Deuteronomy 5.16

“‘Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.’”

This mandate to honor our parents also extends to our forebears in the faith. We must not neglect to learn from the example and counsel of those who have gone before in following our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 15.4).

Further, the rich heritage of literary, cultural, and liturgical achievement which our forebears have bequeathed to us is entrusted to our care in the present, for the sake of the generations to come. We do not honor our forebears in the faith by failing in our stewardship over these treasures. Even though many of them are in the hands of secular curators – paintings, sculptures, works of literature – still we must honor those who have gone before us in the faith by learning what we can of this great cultural heritage and teaching it to our children and one another.

T. M. Moore

The Law of God is the soil which, fertilized by the rest of God’s Word and watered by His Spirit, brings forth the fruit of Christian life. If you’d like to understand this process better, and how to make best use of the Law in your walk with and work for the Lord, order the book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, from our online store.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.