The most unique commandment of the 10 commandments has to be the 5th one, "honor your father and mother". The first 4 deal specifically with our relationship with God and the last 5 deal generally with our relationship with others. Jesus summarizes them all with "love God, love people."
But the 5th command deals directly with two people...our parents. Why? I believe because it is this commandment that demonstrates the importance of submitting to authority in our lives. A child who does not honor his parents and obey them will struggle all of his life to submit to any authority.
Learning to obey your parents is key. If you missed that, becoming a submissive employee, citizen or leader gets even harder. Following leadership honors Christ.
Good point. Submission and authority are both instituted by God (both ends of the equation with regard to who submits to whom). It all beings with our parents. They ARE our parents. They can be bad ones or good ones and we can obey them or disobey them, honor them or not, but they are still our parents. That is an immutable fact of life as chosen directly and specifically by God. We are the chidren of the parents God chose for us. Our children are ours because God chose them for us.
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