MOTHERS-IN-LAW

Hugo McCord

The special honor that people give to mothers on the 2nd Sunday of May, to children on the 2nd Sunday of June, to fathers on the 3rd Sunday of June, to grandparents on the 2nd Sunday of September, to mothers-in-law on the 4th Sunday of October, and to Jesus 52 Sundays each year (Revelation 1:10), puts into practice what the Bible teaches:

Fulfill your obligations to everyone: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom is due; respect to whom respect is due; honor to whom honor is due (Romans 13:7).

Someone wrote, “‘A little love means so much’ for your other mother.” But why is there no “Fathers-in-law Day”? I feel neglected.

As to mothers-in-law, the Portland city library has a book that says:

Traditionally, the fourth Sunday in October is the occasion to honor mothers-in-law for their contribution to the success of families and for their good humor in enduring bad jokes.

A wife telephoned her husband at work, saying, “Mother has just died. Should we plan to bury or embalm or cremate?” His instant reply was, “Let’s do all three and take no chances.”

Another man said that he had conflicting emotions when his mother-in-law borrowed his Cadillac and would be driving on the edge of a cliff.

I. THE FIRST TWO MOTHERS-IN-LAW

According to evolutionists, the first human baby had an ape or a monkey for a mother. If the first human baby was Adam, and the second human baby was Eve, likewise born of an ape or a monkey, when they married, two animals, apes or monkeys, were the first two mothers-in-law.

II. MRS. NOAH

Mrs. Noah was the mother of three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Genesis 5:32), and she was also the mother-in-law for the sons’ wives. What kind of mother-in-law was Mrs. Noah? Her husband was “a preacher of righteousness,” warning everyone for 120 years that a world-wide flood was coming, and that everyone, who did not get in the ship he was building, would be drowned (2 Peter 2:5; Genesis 6:2, 17).

Not only did Mrs. Noah believe her husband’s preaching, but also their three sons and their three daughters-in-law, eight people altogether (1 Peter 3:20). If Mrs. Noah had not been kind and congenial with her three daughters-in-law, both before the flood, and during a whole year housed together in the ship (Genesis 7:11; 8:14), friction would have developed. The lack of any hint of in-law trouble developing is a compliment both to Mrs. Noah and to the three daughters-in-law. The fact that those three daughters-in-law walked into the ship with Mrs. Noah, believing that they would never see their own mothers again, is a strong indication that they had learned to love their mother-in-law.

III. NAOMI

The name “Naomi” (na`omi) means one is pleasant, sweet, agreeable, charming. If ever a woman deserved that name, it was the wife of Elimelech (Ruth 1:2). But in regard to her daughter-in-law Ruth, Naomi could have been so ugly. When her son had married out of Israel, a Moabitess, isolating God’s law (Exodus 34:16; Deuteronomy 7:3), she could have broken with her son, saying, “Take your pagan wife and never cross my threshold again.” Instead, since the marriage was made, she decided to make the best of it, and to make good come from it. She was kind and loving toward Ruth.

Her congenial disposition caused her daughter-in-law Ruth to love her more than she loved her own mother. When Naomi was leaving Moab to return to Bethlehem, she kissed the now widowed Ruth and urged her to return to her mother’s home (Ruth 1:8-10). But Ruth pleaded:

Entreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you, for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, will I die, and there will I be buried. May Yahweh do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me (Ruth 1:16-17).

What love for a mother-in-law! Naomi’s manner of life had so affected Ruth she was changing “churches.” She could see that her religion, centering in the god Chemosh (1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 23:13), was not to be compared with the religion centering in Yahweh, the God of Israel. Furthermore, she did not know that God would use her as one of the grandmothers of Jesus Christ (Ruth (Ruth 4:17-22; Matthew 1:1).

IV. PETER’S MOTHER-IN-LAW

On one occasion Jesus “went into Peter’s house, and saw his mother-in-law, who was lying down with fever” (Matthew 8:14). Jesus “rebuked he fever, and it left her. She arose and immediately began serving” (Luke 4:39). She did not sit and wait to be served, but she “immediately began serving.” The disposition of every admirable person, man or woman, is to be a servant: “whoever among you who wishes to be great shall be your servant, ... even as the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26, 28).

V. TOO MUCH LOVE FOR MOTHERS-IN-LAW

As beautiful and lovely as is love for mothers-in-law, it is superseded by love for Christ:

Do you suppose that I came to bring peace to the earth? No, I assure you, but rather division. Five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three; they will be divided father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law (Luke 12:51-53).

Even the blood of a loveable mother-in-law will not save a soul from sin, for only Jesus “by his blood” washes away our sins (Revelation 1:5).