Honoring the Elderly
Many of us are at the “metallic age” – gold in our teeth, silver in our hair and lead in our pants.
Ouch! That hurts. But at least there are plenty of us who can share the pain. Seventeen percent of our American population were 65 or older in 2020, and that percentage is expected to increase steadily into the future due to declining birth rates.
The good news is that it will give the young growing up in God’s Church plenty of exercise and keep them on their toes, so to speak. One of the things that God instructed Israel is, “‘You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:32). According to the tradition of the Israelites, a young man was obliged to rise when an ancient man was a distance of four cubits from him and to sit down again as soon as he had passed by him, that it might appear that it was done in honor of him. That would mean rising when the elderly person was six feet away.
It should be observed that not all elderly people are honorable. Solomon makes the distinction. “The silver-haired head is a crown of glory, if it is found in the way of righteousness” (Proverbs 16:31). Most of the elderly do get silver-haired, but not all of it comes while living a godly life. Those who do live an exemplary life serve as a foundation for the young to build on.
Rising before the honorable elderly was a foundational gesture in a young person’s formative years. Such a show of respect opened the door to potential reservoirs of knowledge and wisdom that could be shared by appreciative seniors. “Wisdom is with aged men, and with length of days, understanding” (Job 12:12). Such an open door is priceless for the young.
God intends for older men and women of faith to set the example for the young. Titus was instructed by the Apostle Paul to that end. “But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things—” (Titus 2:1–3). God’s intention is for generational cohesion – no broken links.
The act of rising before the elderly was to also be a steppingstone from the physical to the spiritual as well. This is God’s instruction through Moses. “Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged” (Deuteronomy 6:1–2). The fear of God and long life are a consequence of keeping the spirit of rising before the honorable elderly.
Marshall Stiver
