THE COLLAPSE OF CHARACTER - PART 8

DISOBEDIENT TO PARENTS

When Authority Is Rejected at Its First Level

“…blasphemers, disobedient to parents…” 2 Timothy 3:2 

Paul now exposes a mark of the last days that strikes closer to home than many are willing to admit. He moves from contempt toward God and authority in general to rebellion at its most basic and formative level: “disobedient to parents.”This is not a minor social concern. It is a spiritual indicator.

The family is the first institution God established. Before government, before church structure, before formal law, God placed children under parental authority. Obedience in the home is meant to train the heart for submission to God. When that structure collapses, the effects ripple outward into every sphere of life.

Scripture treats this matter with clarity and gravity. The fifth commandment declares, “Honour thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:12). This commandment carries a promise, because it undergirds social stability. A society that loses respect for parental authority loses respect for authority altogether.

Paul reinforces this in Ephesians when he writes, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1). Notice the simplicity of the statement. Obedience is not framed as optional, emotional, or conditional. It is right. It reflects God’s order. To reject it is to reject more than rules—it is to reject design.

Disobedience to parents is not merely youthful immaturity. Paul lists it among the marks of a corrupt age. Why? Because rebellion in the home produces rebellion everywhere else. When children are taught—explicitly or implicitly—that authority exists to be negotiated, challenged, or dismissed, submission to God becomes foreign.

The Old Testament speaks bluntly on this issue. Proverbs warns, “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out” (Proverbs 30:17). That imagery is severe because the offence is severe. Mockery of parental authority is not harmless humour; it is moral decay.

Charles Spurgeon warned that when parental authority is undermined, society reaps chaos. He observed that children who are not taught obedience early rarely learn self-control later. Discipline delayed becomes discipline denied. Love without authority produces entitlement, not character.

History affirms this truth. Winston Churchill spoke often of the importance of strong homes as the backbone of national resilience. He understood that nations do not crumble first in parliament—they crumble in households. When respect is lost in the home, order cannot be sustained in the streets.

Our present age illustrates this vividly. Parental authority is routinely undermined. Discipline is portrayed as harm. Instruction is reframed as control. Children are encouraged to see parents as obstacles rather than guides. Even well-meaning voices argue that authority must be earned rather than honoured. Scripture teaches the opposite.

This rebellion does not stop at childhood. Disobedience matures into disdain. Those who are not taught to submit to parents struggle to submit to employers, leaders, law, or God. Peter warns of those who “despise government” (2 Peter 2:10), and Paul shows us where that disdain begins.

The tragedy is compounded when this spirit enters the church. Biblical authority is questioned. Pastoral leadership is resisted. Correction is resented. Personal preference becomes the measure of truth. The root is the same: a heart that was never taught to obey.

Christ Himself stands as the perfect contrast. Though He was the Son of God, Scripture tells us He “was subject unto them” (Luke 2:51), speaking of His earthly parents. If the sinless Son submitted Himself to parental authority, what excuse remains for rebellion?

For the believer, this demands both vigilance and courage. Parents are called to lead, not abdicate. Children are called to obey, not negotiate. Homes are meant to be places where authority is exercised with love and received with humility. This is not cultural—it is biblical.

Paul includes disobedience to parents early in his list because it reveals how far decline has progressed. When the first authority God established is rejected, no authority remains safe.

The last days are marked by broken homes not merely because families are fragile, but because authority is despised.

And once authority is rejected at home, gratitude soon disappears everywhere else.