Father's Day is inventory time. One of the oldest commandments ever given is: "Honor your father and mother...."

Here is a question for all dads. Are you honored?

A second question. Are you honorable?

One way to earn the honor of your children is the way you treat their mother. Some brutish men may not be able to quote much Scripture, but they know the macho man's Magna Carta: "Wives submit to your husbands...."

If Scripture is to be used to define the wife's relation to her husband, the entire relationship must be considered biblically.

In context is found the additional admonition to "submit to one another." It is a mutual submission. If the word in that Scripture passage for wives is "submit," the instructive word for husbands is "commit."

The nature and extent of that commitment is defined as being "just as the church is subject to Christ."

That means the husband is to love his wife to the extent he would die for her.

It is even spelled out: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it." That's love.

Certain roles carry with them honor. The role of father is one.

Children pass on what they receive. This pattern is seen in abused children who become abusers. It is logical they can't pass on anything they don't receive.

A dad can break the negative cycle and build a positive image.

Unfortunately the model many children get of parents is derived from TV. Tonight nearly 50 percent of the children in America will go to bed in a hone where the biological dad isn't present. The TV set is present and it is casting the image of dad for over 25 million children.

The TV dad is portrayed as androgynous. That is, he is neither male nor female. Of the 100 family shows, only 15 feature a father as a main character on a regular basis. Studies show that programs that do feature fathers don't do it in a positive way. The order of intellect starts from the dog and goes down through the children, then the mother, and then the dad. He is most often a buffoon.

The absence of a functioning father in the homes of America is further revealed by the fact more than 70 percent of juvenile felons have no father figure in their lives. A sidebar result is it costs society millions of dollars to incarcerate them and further taints their lives.

Any male can be involved in the natural procreation of a child, but only a real man can be a good dad. It requires time and manifests itself in love, patience and modeling the male image.

Wisely we all should pray the encouragement of the ancient prophet Malachi: "...turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers."

Dads, if you are a derelict dad you have no idea what you are missing out on, nor of what you are depriving your child.

From this day earn the honor of your children - and wife.

The Rev. Dr. Nelson Price is pastor emeritus of Roswell Street Baptist Church. Contact Price at nlprice@aol.com.