Hey everybody, welcome to Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greer and I am Matt Love, your host. And last week, we started

counting down the most listened to episodes in the history of the podcast. So this week, we're going to tackle an episode

from a series we did on family and relationships. And the topic is, how do you honor a toxic

parent? Our listener, Eli, wrote into us and just shared his heart on something that's very personal that he's dealing with,

something that I'm sure a lot of us have struggled with at different times.

But he said, hello, Pastor Greer, I'm struggling with how to honor a toxic mother.

I know the Bible teaches to honor your father and mother, but I am unsure how to do

this with a mother who is toxic and doesn't understand boundaries that my future wife and I have

set in place to protect our marriage. My question is, how does someone honor their parents when the

parents are toxic to their kids' lives? Well, Matt, let me first say to our listener. I know that's a painful question to ask.

And it's one that I actually get with some surprising frequency here at our church.

So I know it's something that a lot of people think about.

What does it mean to honor your parents?

And how long do you do that?

And what happens when they're telling you things that you know or not the right thing after after you become an adult and sometimes on into marriage exactly they're they're saying

things and they're trying to speak into your life and control you in ways that you don't think is

helpful and like you know our listener is saying sometimes that's even toxic you know this brings us to

one of the one of the big ten one of the the ten commandments. It's the fifth commandment.

And what it says is honor your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land

that the Lord your God has given you.

Now, a couple things to understand this commandment that are important in terms of background.

The ten commandments are divided into two basic sections.

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