What does the Bible teach regarding the relationship of a grown child to their parent?
From your message at address below..
2. As Adults
1) Children don't stop being children just because they are grown up.
2) Parents still have a responsibility to love and support them.
3) Children still have the responsibility to obey their parents.
Do you have scripture to back these points? The obeying I'm having a problem with because when you marry the wife takes on a vow to obey her husband which is the head of the house.
I've searched and I haven't found anything yet. Please send scripture to back these few points.
Thanks for your question.
I think that number 1 is self evident. I am still the child of my mother and father even though I am an adult.
Wouldn't number 2 be true as well? Don't parents have the responsibility to love and support (at least morally, not necessarily financially) their children even after they are out of the house? Jesus says that we must love all men ( Mark 12:31). That would include our children. And the principle found in 1 Timothy 5:8 would apply to children, provided that those children were not deadbeats and were doing the best they could to help themselves (2 Thess.3:10).
So do children still have the responsibility to obey their parents. Yes, to a degree. We must honor our father and mother ( Exodus 20:12; Eph.6:2). Parents must respect that a grown child must make his own decisions in the world (that's part of what it means to leave and cleave, Matthew 19:5), but should a parent expect something out of us, then we certainly need to provide the same amount of respect and honor that we would to them as we would to our fellow Christians ( Ephesians 5:21). Obedience, of course, must be "in the Lord" ( Ephesians 6:2) and not in contradiction to God's will ( Acts 5:29).
I hope that clarifies things for you. Thanks for asking for the scriptures.
Posted in: Bible Answers, Family