Jan 21, 2025
Belle Bennett in The Fourth Commandment (1927) Dir. Emory Johnson
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Belle Bennett in The Fourth Commandment (1927) Dir. Emory Johnson
“One step in growing up is coming out from under parental authortuy and putting yourself under God’s authority.
The Bible says that children are under the authority of their parents until they become adults (Gal. 4:1-7). In a real sense, their parents are responsible for them. But when adulthood and the ‘age of accountability’ comes, that person comes out from under guardians and managers and becomes responsible for himself or herself. Christians move into another parental relationship with God as Father. God does not leave us as orphans, but takes us into his family.
Numerous New Testament passages teach us that we need to forsake our allegiance to our original family and become adopted by God (Matt. 23:9). God commands us to look to him as our Father and to have no parental intermediaries. Adults who are still holding an allegiance to earthly parents have not realized their new adoptive status.
Many times we are not obeying the Word of God because we have not spiritually left home. We feel we still need to please our parents and follow their traditional ways of doing things rather than obey our new Father (Matt. 15:1-6).
When we become part of God’s family, obeying his ways will sometimes cause conflicts in our families and sometimes separate us (Matt. 10:35-37). Jesus says our spiritual ties are the closest and most important (Matt. 12:46-50). Our true family is the family of God.
In this family, which is to be our strongest tie, things are done a certain way. We are to tell the truth, to set limits, take and require responsibility, confront each other, forgive each other, and so on. Strong standards and values make this family run. And God will not allow any other way in his family.
This is no way means that we are to cut other ties. We are to have friends outside of God’s family and strong ties with our family of origin. However, we need to ask two questions: Do these ties keep us from doing the right thing in any situation? and Have we really become an adult in relation to our family of origin?
If our ties are truly loving, we will be separate and free and give out of love and a ‘purposeful’ heart. We will stay away from resentment, we will love with limits, and we still not enable evil behavior.
If we are not ‘subject to guardians and trustees’ as adults (Gal. 4:2), we can make truly adult decisions, having control over our own will (1 Cor. 7:37), subject to our true Father.”
-Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend on pages 133-134, Chapter 7: Boundaries and Your Family, subsection “Adoption” of their book Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life
The Fourth Commandment (1927) Dir. Emory Johnson
The Fourth Commandment (1927) Dir. Emory Johnson
THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT (1927) by Grapevine Video — Kickstarter
A rare silent emotional drama directed by Emory Johnson, starring Belle Bennett and Henry Victor coming to DVD and Blu-ray!
New Kickstarter to support. Belle Bennett in The Fourth Commandment, 1927.
This emotional drama follows Virginia through the years, an orphaned woman scarred by her life and losses. Even though she marries her sweetheart Gordon she finds herself lost in unhappiness and jealousy, spurning a loving marriage and kindly mother-in-law to pursue false contentment and comfort with a wealthier man.
Should not the heart leap and overflow with joy when it can go to work and do what is commanded of it, saying, “See, this is better than the holiness of all the Carthusians, even if they fast to death and never stop praying on their knees”? For here you have a sure text and a divine testimony that God has enjoined this but has not commanded a single word concerning those other works. But it is the plight and miserable blindness of the world that no one believes this--so thoroughly has the devil bewitched us with the false holiness and glamour of our own works.
~The Large Catechism 1:120
Third, you are also to honor them by your actions, that is, with your body and possessions, serving them, helping them, and caring for them when they are old, sick, feeble, or poor; all this you should do not only cheerfully, but also with humility and reverence, doing it as if for God. Those who know how they are to cherish their parents in their hearts will not let them endure want or hunger, but will place them above and beside themselves and share with them all they have to the best of their ability.
The Large Catechism 1:111
In regard to brothers, sisters, and neighbors in general God commands nothing higher than that we love them. But he distinguishes father and mother above all other persons on earth, and places them next to himself. For it is a much higher thing to honor than to love. Honor includes not only love, but also deference, humility, and modesty directed (so to speak) toward a majesty concealed within them. Honor requires us not only to address them affectionately and with high esteem, but above all to show by our actions, both of heart and body, that we respect them very highly, and that next to God we give them the very highest place. For anyone whom we are wholeheartedly to honor, we must truly regard as high and great.
The Large Catechism 1:105-107