Honoring Mom

But God didn't set aside one day to show our mothers we love and respect them. The fifth commandment doesn't say on one day you shall honor your father and mother. God wants us to show honor to our parents every day of the year.

In the world we always seem to have extremes. On the one hand, there are those who want women to be at home all the time taking care of the kids and the house. They think the husband should call all the shots. In such homes the wife is given little or no say in how the family lives. On the other hand, nowadays, we have those who feel women aren't complete unless they're working outside the home. They feel women need to be liberated from men. In many cases these women are not help mates to their husbands, but are in open competition with them. As usual, the answer lies somewhere in-between these two extreme views.

I thought it might help us to honor the women among us if we understood a little better what the Bible has to say about women.

In Genesis 2:24 man is commanded to leave his father and mother when he gets married. This doesn't mean that he stops honoring his parents, merely that he now is joined to his wife and looks to her for comfort and support ahead of his parents'. This new husband and wife start a household and family of their own. Children are born who will grow up and start families of their own. What goes on within those families is greatly affected by what went on in the home of the parents, and the grandparents and the great-grandparents.

We know that Abraham was to father a great nation, but God also gave Sarah recognition as the mother of nations; "And God said unto Abraham, 'As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be from her.' Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, 'Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?'"(Gen. 17:15-17) So Abraham laughed about that even before Sarah did.

In Hebrews we're told that Sarah was able to receive strength and conceive seed because she had FAITH in God. Even though she laughed about it, she still had faith.

We're told in 1 Pet 3:6 that the women of God are Sarah's daughter's as long as we do well and aren't afraid.

It was Moses' mother who God moved to place Moses in a basket and lay him on the Nile River. And, of course, God arranged it so that she could be his wet nurse, really his mother, for the first few years of his life, the formative years, so that when he was an adult he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

Samual's mother believed God would give her a son. She was strong enough and had enough faith in God to be able to give her son over to the Priest Eli when the child was three years old. Of course she visited Samual every year at feast time.

God told Israel that their children should obey the voice of their father AND their mother. (Deu 21:18)

Deborah, who was a prophetess and judged Israel (that means she was the leader of Israel during the time of the judges) was called a Mother to Israel (Judges 5:7)

Israelite women were allowed to attend religious services and could even present offerings for sacrifice. (Lev. 12:5-6)

In the Old Testament a woman as well as a man could take a Nazarite vow to dedicate herself to the Eternal. (Numbers 6:2)

God said women had the right to own land. And to inherit it if there were no sons. (Numbers 27:1-11)

Any discussion of mothers cannot forget Naomi, who so impressed Ruth that she returned with her mohter-in-law to the foreign land of Israel, even though Israel and Moab hated each other. Ruth, as we know, married Boaz, and became the great-grandmother of king David.

If you go through the books of Kings and Chronicles you will see that most of the mothers of the kings of Judah are given.

Even though the genealogies in the Bible follow the male line, orthodox Jews don't consider anyone a Jew unless they have a Jewish mother. Let's look at Proverbs 1:8, "My son, hear the instruction of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother:" The law was considered to have come down through the mothers. That's why the orthodox Jews don't consider a child to be a Jew unless they have a Jewish mother.

Solomon obviously had great regard for mothers and, of course, great insight as well, for he said in Proverbs 10:1, "A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son grief to his mother." (NIV) Naturally, a foolish son brings grief to his father too, but it seems to hit a lot harder on the mother when a son does foolish things.

He said in Pro 23:22, "Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old." The older a mother becomes, the more honor she should be given. And in verse 25, "May your father and mother be glad, may she who gave your birth rejoice." Children should make their parents happy.

Let's look at the Proverbs 31 woman. The Proverbs 31 woman, of course, was a mother. Verse 1 and 2, "The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him." These may be the word's of king Lemuel, but he's quoting his mother. The whole rest of Proverbs 31 after verse one is the quotation of Lemuel's mother. Lemuel is often considered to be Solomon, so that would have been Bathsheba. "'What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows? Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.'" We all know verse 28, "Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her." But look at the last verse, Proverbs 31:31, the final word that Proverbs has "Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise in the city gates." That's public praise.

Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman, even though Jews didn't talk to Samaritans in those days, and certainly men didn't talk to women whom they didn't know. (John 4:6--25)

Jesus was friends with Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead. On one visit Martha acted as hostess and she was busy, busy, busy. But Mary sat at Jesus' feet. This has the meaning of being a pupil of a Rabbi; listening to his teaching. When Martha complained to Jesus that she was doing all the work and asked him to tell her sister to help her, Jesus informed Martha that Mary had chosen the good portion, and it wasn't going to be taken away from her. (Luke 10:38-42)

Though most of Jesus' followers forsook him and fled, there were a few faithful woman who followed Jesus right to the hill of Golgotha (Matthew 27:55-56 and John 19:25-26)

The last thing Jesus, the Creator of the universe, and of all men and women, did before He died, while He was in indescribable agony on the cross, was to make provision for His mother. People often wonder why he gave John the responsibility of taking care of His mother instead of one of his brothers. I think it was because He knew that John was going to live a long time. Long enough to be able to take care of Mary until she died.

After Jesus was resurrected it was women who were first at the tomb - and these women were the first to discover that the stone had been rolled away and that Jesus' body was gone. (Luke 24:1-3)

When the angel told them to "Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again'" they "remembered Christ's words" and believed. (Luke 24:1-11)

These women were among those that were faithfully waiting with the apostles for the promise of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:13-14)

Paul wrote in his letters about many women who served in the Church. Among them Paul states that Euodia and Syntyche were women who had "Labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life." (Philipians. 4:2-3)

Then there is Priscilla and her husband Aquila who worked with Paul and both explained the Way more perfectly to Appolos, who only knew of the baptism of John.

Gifts of the spirit were bestowed upon the women of God's Church in the early first century, just as they were to men. The daughters of Philip "did prophesy" (Acts 21:9)

It would have been very unlikely that Timothy, the son of a Greek father would have been in the Church, let alone on of Paul's most loyal helpers had it not been for the influence of his mother Lois and his grandmother Eunice.

Mother's Day is a special day to honor mothers, but every day is a day to honor mothers, most of them work 16 hours a day and they're on call 24 hours a day and most of them don't even get all of Mother's Day off - they shouldn't have only one day off in the year. They should get deep respect and honor 24 hours a day and get many special days throughout the year. And get many 'special days' throughout the year.