Piety
Piety is often defined today as a devotion to God or to religious practices.
At the same time when religion was defined as piety in practice the word piety was defined as a duty.[1]
As Filial piety that duty was to your Father and Mother and through them to others within your community. But our duty to Father and Mother was a natural responsibility or right. And as a natural right and responsibility it was given by God and expressed in the Ten Statements by God.
Piety is the virtue of exhibiting love and respect for one's parents, elders, and ancestors because children are expected to respect and take care of their parents. It may imply that children should respect and follow their parents decisions but to honor your father and mother. The word Honour[2] in Exodus 20:12[3] and Deuteronomy 5:16[4].
Through such piety, a person shows reverence for God as a loving Father, and respect for others as children of God. Even Pope John Paul II defined piety as "the gift of reverence for what comes from God."
But the means and method of that gift often determines the outcome.
- ↑ "DUTY, natural law.
- 1. A human action which is, exactly conformable to the laws which require us to obey them.
- 2. It differs from a legal obligation, because a duty cannot always be enforced by the law; it is our duty, for example, to be temperate in eating, but we are under no legal obligation to be so; we ought to love our neighbors, but no law obliges us to love them.
- 3. Duties may be considered in the relation of man towards God, towards himself, and towards mankind.
- 1. We are bound to obey the will of God as far as we are able to discover it, because he is the sovereign Lord of the universe who made and governs all things by his almighty power, and infinite wisdom. The general name of this duty is piety: which consists in entertaining just opinions concerning him, and partly in such affections towards him, and such, worship of him, as is suitable to these opinions.
- 2. A man has a duty to perform towards himself; he is bound by the law of nature to protect his life and his limbs; it is his duty, too, to avoid all intemperance in eating and drinking, and in the unlawful gratification of all his other appetites.
- 3. He has duties to perform towards others. He is bound to do to others the same justice which he would have a right to expect them to do to him." Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 1856 Edition. Emphases added
- ↑ 03513 ^דבכ^ kabad \@kaw-bad’\@ or ^דבכ^ kabed \@kaw-bade’\@ KufBeitDalet a primitive root; v; {See TWOT on 943} AV-honour 34, glorify 14, honourable 14, heavy 13, harden 7, glorious 5, sore 3, made heavy 3, chargeable 2, great 2, many 2, heavier 2, promote 2, misc 10; 116
- 1) to be heavy, be weighty, be grievous, be hard, be rich, be honourable, be glorious, be burdensome, be honoured
- 1a) (Qal)
- 1a1) to be heavy
- 1a2) to be heavy, be insensible, be dull
- 1a3) to be honoured
- 1b) (Niphal)
- 1b1) to be made heavy, be honoured, enjoy honour, be made abundant
- 1b2) to get oneself glory or honour, gain glory
- 1c) (Piel)
- 1c1) to make heavy, make dull, make insensible
- 1c2) to make honourable, honour, glorify
- 1d) (Pual) to be made honourable, be honoured
- 1e) (Hiphil)
- 1e1) to make heavy
- 1e2) to make heavy, make dull, make unresponsive
- 1e3) to cause to be honoured
- 1f) (Hithpael)
- 1f1) to make oneself heavy, make oneself dense, make oneself numerous
- 1f2) to honour oneself
- 1a) (Qal)
- 1) to be heavy, be weighty, be grievous, be hard, be rich, be honourable, be glorious, be burdensome, be honoured
- ↑ Exodus 20:12 Honour <03513> thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
- ↑ Deuteronomy 5:16 Honour <03513> thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.