especially in the light of :

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple." Luke14:26

which is probably just another way of saying:

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;" Matthew 10:37

but it still sounds rather harsh.

Then there is the run in with the Pharisees:

"Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!" Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'"

just to make it more confusing...

that last one was matthew 15:1-9

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Kristi:
Yeah. Good question, and relevant.

So God freed Israel from slavery & promised them their own country.
Before he gave it to them, he gave them rules. The first of the main 10 was:
"honor your parents so that you live a long time in the land I'm giving you."
This sounds like a commandment for preserving community in its most basic form (family): it's a command to "do x TO CAUSE y."

To preserve the unity of Hebrew families, God commanded sons&daughters to honor their parents, which involves
1)being under the parents' authority
2)highly regarding/esteeming the parents
#1 helps the body of the family be unified by giving it one "trump" source of action.
#2 is where the kids help the 'rents with the heavy responsibility of authority by thinking well of them and treating them like they're great. (You know how when people believe in you it is encouraging?)

I think the Hebrews would live with their parents until they married ("for this reason a man will leave his father and mother..."), and then quickly become parents themselves.
So I don't think they had this wierd time we have where we live alone but mom&dad call sometimes.
By letting us live apart from them, our parents are imparting (revocable?) authority over ourselves: they're granting us autonomy.

God gave the command to the Hebrews.
He imparted some of his authority over sons&daughters to the parents, so being under parental authority was generally entailed in being under God's authority.

I'm unsure the ten commandments are universal laws. I know God told the Hebrews to obey them. Perhaps we're adopted Jews so it is passed on to us. Or maybe it was a shell that broke when the new covenant hatched. So I'm unsure if I should hear the 10 as God himself commanding the same of me.

Even if God doesn't command the same of me, it still seems a helpful glimpse of they order God likes. How to use it, though?
Claim it as a command perhaps--make it a law for yourself.
Yes, perhaps.

I had a thought on this as a result of a blogpost of Matt's from sometime last week or so. In cultures that practiced arranged marriages (like the ancient Hebrew culture), deciding the issue of a person's spouse was pretty much just an extension of the commandment to honor your father and mother. Not to gloss over the complications in the relationship between honoring and obeying, of course--I mean, it is entirely possible for the will of the parents to differ from the will of God regarding marriage, and the Bible makes it clear in numerous passages that the will of God should take priority over the will of man. Personally, I don't know whether arranged marriage is inferior or superior to our culture's system. I can see advantages and disadvantages to each. Parents still often offer their perspectives on a child's choice of romantic partner, and they often voice approval or concern, so they're still involved, just not as directly?...so honor for parents manifests itself differently in our culture. Something like that.
I think part of it is respecting your parents' wisdom. When they tell you that something is a good idea, it honors them to consider their words and treat the advice with respect. As a child, this often takes the form of obedience, because the child doesn't possess the wisdom that the parents do, and the child also lacks the experience in evaluating the wisdom of advice (and wise children will be aware of this fact!). But even for adults, it's good to listen to parents' advice and consider it, even to seek it out when faced with big decisions. It shows that you value their thoughts and think their advice is worth looking at to determine the truth of it, even if you don't agree with them 100% on everything. There are a number of times my parents have given me good counsel on problems and difficulties and hard choices in my life. And there are times that I didn't entirely agree with their advice, but it still helped me consider viewpoints and factors that wouldn't otherwise have occurred to me.
Yesterday, I went to see "An Inconvenient Truth" with my family for Father's Day, and even though it was far from the movie I was most interested in, I ended up learning a lot from it and I appreciate my dad's choice. Honoring parents sometimes means deferring to their preference.
So, there's my musings, for what they're worth.

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Okay K- here you go:
The word in Hebrew is 'ka-bahd' (Piel form, imperative) it comes directly from the word 'ka-vahd' which means to be weighty, heavy, or even burdensome. It is usually translated in reference to people as 'honor' or even 'glorify'...also in Malachi 1:6...

I have wondered for a while: How would one honor one's parent if they acted dishonorably? Would it be like respecting an office or rank without really approving of the person who held it - or is that just a cop out?

@laura

Maybe that is the weighty part?

@ laura:
I too have wondered about this, as I am practically in the midst of a circumstance where heads are butting between me and my parents. Not exactly what you asked, but here are some thoughts I've recently put down in an email to a friend that might be applicable: Honoring my parents is honoring them for their authority, which should mirror the authority of my heavenly Father... my earthly father (and mother) should be striving to bring me up in a godly way, and in a way that reflects our heavenly Father. Would it honor them this position of theirs if I were to "obey" them in a way that dishonored or disobeyed my heavenly Father? I don't think so. I think it would honor them more to act in such a way that maintains my respect for them as my parents and elders, but showing them that my ultimate allegiance is to my heavenly Father. It would honor my parents to honor God because - supposedly - they should have brought me up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

So when this is lacking, what then? What do I do when I do not believe my upbringing taught me to love and obey my Heavenly Father? It is a hard situation, but I think my allegiance ultimately is to my Lord and not to any person - parents/ spouse/ friend - on earth.

Think of a spouse married to an unbeliever. There is a reason we shouldn't marry an unbeliever - like a yoke on cattle, the unbeliever will pull the yoke on the believer away from God... it will be a struggle for the believer to steer correctly, in the way towards God. But God doesn't call the believer to leave their unbelieving spouse. Yet, God neither calls the believer to commit sin nor to cease to follow Him above all... in fact, we are to show that we love and obey God above anything else as a witness to the unbelieving spouse. Likewise, the best witness I can offer to my parents is to follow the Lord on the path He is leading me on. ....

So perhaps the best way to "honor" a parent that has acted dishonorably is to steer them back to the example of our Heavenly Father, by our words, but also by our actions, and even, our love.