Kootenai Church Sunday School: Christian Ethics

Dave Rich turns to the fifth commandment in Lesson 41 of Christian Ethics and the Old Testament, examining what it means to honor father and mother in Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16. He traces the Hebrew word kavod back to its root meaning of weight and substance, showing why honor calls for treating parents as significant rather than dismissing them.
Using John Calvin's framework, Rich breaks honor into three parts: reverence, obedience, and gratitude. He distinguishes between honoring parents, a lifelong obligation for every child, and obeying parents, which applies most directly to children still living at home. From there he addresses gratitude in concrete terms, including the biblical case for adult children providing financially for aging parents and respecting parental property, drawn from the parable of the prodigal son.
Rich also considers the promise attached to the commandment, weighing its original corporate meaning for Israel against its application today, and closes with the limits of parental authority. Since parents hold derived authority under God, children are never required to obey a command to sin.
Listeners walk away with a clearer framework for honoring parents at every stage of life, along with practical direction for navigating difficult family relationships with biblical wisdom.
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Creators and Guests

Host
Dave Rich
Teacher, Kootenai Community Church

What is Kootenai Church Sunday School: Christian Ethics?

This comprehensive Christian Ethics series provides believers with a biblical framework for navigating moral questions in contemporary life. Through systematic teaching, the series explores meta-ethics, normative ethics, and practical applications grounded in Scripture. Topics include the authority of God's Word, the relationship between law and gospel, and identity in Christ as the foundation for ethical living. The series addresses modern ethical dilemmas, including technology ethics, artificial intelligence, social media, business ethics, sexual ethics, and racism. Listeners will gain clarity on controversial topics such as Sabbath-keeping, images of Jesus, and the conscience's role in decision-making while avoiding ethical ditches like legalism and antinomianism.