What does the Bible say about parental love?
Bible Topic · WEB
The Bible teaches that parental love reflects God’s own faithful, compassionate care and calls parents to nurture children with tender, disciplined wisdom while children honor and obey their parents. Ephesians 6:4 and Proverbs 22:6 urge fathers and mothers to bring children up in the Lord rather than provoking or neglecting them. Proverbs 13:24 presents discipline as an expression of committed love, not harshness or anger. Children are commanded in Exodus 20:12 and Colossians 3:20 to honor their parents, recognizing God’s ordering of the family. Psalms 103:13 portrays the Lord as a compassionate Father, while 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 shows that true love is patient, kind, and self-giving, rooted ultimately in God’s love shown in Christ.
Top passages, ranked by readers
Rankings: OpenBible.info Topical Bible (CC BY) · Scripture: World English Bible
- Ephesians 6:4 9 votes
You fathers, don’t provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
- Proverbs 22:6 8 votes
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
- Colossians 3:14 7 votes
Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.
- Exodus 20:12 6 votes
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
- Psalms 103:13 5 votes
Like a father has compassion on his children, so Yahweh has compassion on those who fear him.
- 1 John 4:8 4 votes
He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.
- Romans 5:8 4 votes
But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
- Colossians 3:20 4 votes
Children, obey your parents in all things, for this pleases the Lord.
- 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 3 votes
If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.
- Proverbs 13:24 3 votes
One who spares the rod hates his son, but one who loves him is careful to discipline him.
Related topics
Go deeper
Ask Explain Bible AI about parental love and get a fuller answer from a Reformed theological perspective.
Ask what the Bible says about parental love