Toxic parents - do I have to keep honoring my father and mother

'Honour thy father and thy mother' (Exodus 20:12) is real and lasting - but honor does not mean unlimited access, obedience in adulthood, or submitting to ongoing cruelty. Scripture itself limits parental authority: parents are commanded not to provoke their children (Ephesians 6:4, Colossians 3:21), and Jesus condemned religious people who used piety to justify harming family (Mark 7:9-13).

You can honor a destructive parent the way you honor a fire: with truthfulness, without contempt, and from a safe distance. Honor can look like courteous boundaries, refusing to slander them while also refusing to be harmed by them, providing for genuine needs where possible (1 Timothy 5:8), and praying for them - all without pretending the harm did not happen or letting it continue.

If your parents abused you, protecting yourself and your children from them is not dishonor; it is stewardship. 'When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up' (Psalm 27:10) - God does not side with the abuser in the name of the fifth commandment.