Respect Your Elders

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Wednesday morning, 7th January, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Book of Leviticus 19:32:

“You shall rise before the gray headed and honour the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the Lord.” 

Then we go to the Book of Proverbs 20:29:

”The glory of young men is their strength, and the splendour of old men is their gray head.”

Then the last scripture is in 1 Timothy 5:1:

”Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father…”

I want to speak about respecting older people. Do you know it’s the first commandment in the Bible with a promise added to it? “Honour your father and your mother so that your days may be long in the land…” and I want to say to young parents, please teach your children to respect senior citizens, not for the sake of the senior citizens but so that their children will have an easier passage through life. There is nothing worse than to see a badly mannered young child who refuses to stand up when an old person walks into the room, who refuses to greet an old person with respect, who refuses to take their hat off when an old person comes into the room. Why? Because when they go out into the world, they will suffer because they have no respect for age. So for the sake of your children, please teach them.

Just before Christmas, we went to the old age home in Greytown and I had a tremendous honour of meeting an old couple. The gentleman is 103 years old and his dear old wife is in her mid nineties. They have been married for 74 years. Amazing! I said, “You make me feel like a teenager.” Aah folks, but to honour them was not hard for me. I greeted him with the greatest of respect, and his dear wife, because they have walked the road. 

Now, I am only quoting scripture this morning. This is what the Lord has laid on my heart. Please, I know that somebody is saying, ”Ja, but you don’t know what this old mother or father of mine are like.” Yes, they might be grumpy, but they also might be in pain, having suffered a lot of things in their lives, physically and even mentally and spiritually, but honour them because Jesus said so. 

Have a wonderful day.
God bless you and goodbye.