I appreciated the invitation from Andrew Walker to write on the biblical case for parental rights and authority for Public Discourse, and online journal of the Witherspoon Institute. Below is an excerpt from the article, the rest of which can be read here.

“Parental authority is enshrined in Christian Scripture in a prominent position as the first commandment of the second table of the Ten Commandments: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exod. 20:12). The ordering of the decalogue is instructive: primary is man’s duty to the authority of God, who is the author of life and the world and everything in it. This duty to God is followed immediately by man’s duty to parental authority. The Jewish philosopher-theologian Philo of Alexandria was so impressed by the connection between divine and parental authority that he understood the fifth commandment to be in the first table as part of man’s duty to God.”