“Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.” (I Peter 2:17)
The sounds of new year celebration have died down, most of the cleanup is done, we’ve survived another holiday season, and life as we know it is slowly returning to whatever sense of normal you may have established. It’s back to the grindstone at work, the kids will soon be returning to school, businesses can begin enacting their plans for this year’s budget. What about you? Did you make any plans to change or up your game this year over last, or are you simply floating along on the tide, preparing to react to whatever comes your way in this new season?
There are a handful of studies I have truly enjoyed over the years. As a child I was taught by my parents to always protect the weak – the handicapped, the runt, those weakened by sickness or disease, or the outnumbered. They also taught me to respect my elders, obey those in authority, and carry myself with respect toward all around me and myself. Mom was a big volunteer worker with the local Blind Association here in town, plus our neighbor was an elderly blind woman with whom mom had been friends since she was in high school. Needless to say I was encouraged to work with mom in her endeavors to serve the blind in our community. Service, then was ingrained into my spirit since a child. Always being around elderly people (back then fifty was elderly – haha), I learned to listen to their stories and glean whatever I could from them. Being an only (surviving) child forced me into the presence of older adults moreso than playmates or siblings, so I developed an old soul. With all this background, then, it only seems to come natural to enjoy reading and hearing the words of the aged and mature around me.
The book of I Peter, then, would have been the words of Peter – an aged veteran of the early Church. He was one of the original founders of this new Christian offshoot of the Jewish religion. He was commissioned by Jesus to spread the gospel to all men, but more especially the non-Jewish heathens of the world. History tells us that Peter was martyred just a handful of years after he wrote this book and it is believed that he was anywhere from 60-80 years old when that occurred (although the exact dates are quite varied). So the scripture quoted earlier come from a man who walked with Jesus for three and a half years, then spent the whole rest of his life in full-time ministry.
What words of wisdom did Peter feel compelled to share with his listeners? How should we live (according to his experience) in our world? I encourage you to delve deeply into the books of 1 Peter and 2 Peter, for therein are found many, many nuggets of wisdom on how to live as a Christian, how to carry ourselves as representatives of Christ on the earth, and just good, solid rules for our comportment.
The first words he shared in this verse were to “honour all men.” The word Peter used here for honor is the word meaning to place value upon all people. During his time ministering alongside Jesus, Peter saw Christ reach out to the downtrodden, the oppressed, the sick, the hopeless, and those who were sincerely seeking their way in life. He watched as Jesus healed the blind, he listened as Jesus spoke with the woman at the well, he also witnessed Jesus’ various encounters with the “religious leaders” of their day. He learned to value and cherish what Jesus cherished. He learned to shun and avoid those people and situations that Jesus avoided and shunned. The highest value seemed to be on those who were hopeless and hungry. So the first thing Peter tells us is to wisely place our value upon those others have tossed aside and see their value as brothers and sisters in life.
Next Peter tells us to love the brotherhood. One of the hardest things I have found in my life to accomplish is to love my fellow Christians. Interesting, isn’t it? Those who have found their way out of the confusion of life and hopelessness become some of the most prickly, hard-to-love people we encounter. How many times have you been taken advantage of by someone only to find out they call themselves a Christian? How many arguments have you become involved in with someone who is supposed to be on your side? Isn’t that crazy? Yet we are challenged in scripture to not forget from where we were taken, to not lose sight of the type of people we once were. Yet the very thing we find ourselves doing is living as though we never did anything wrong or were fallen into depravity of some kind. I get it – we want to leave that life behind (and we should) – yet the ones still living that lifestyle are supposed to be our mission field. We understand them, we “get it.” Love the brotherhood, Peter tells us. I belong to a handful of secular fraternities in our community. Those of us on the inside have all gone through the same initiation cermonies, we have all sworn allegiance to one another, and we avoid conflict within our ranks at all costs. So it is to be with our fellow Christians. We may not see eye-to-eye on every subject, yet we can be bound together by our love for Jesus Christ as we face a common enemy – Satan. That is the only way we can win the world for Him – by our unified fellowship.
Fear God. This doesn’t take a whole lot of explanation, does it? We fear God in the sense that we respect and honor Him – true. We acknowledge that He Is all-powerful, He Is all-knowing, He Is all-seeing, He Is and everything comes out of Him and returns to Him. But we seem to have lost the flip side of fear – that side of us that stands before Him still helplessly weak and humble. We stand before the One from Whom our next heartbeat and breath comes. He has the ultimate power over our very existence – whether we live or die, whether we advance in life, whether we are healthy and strong or smitten down be sickness and disease. We have gotten “chummy” with God and lost that sense of awe and respect.
Perhaps the hardest thing for all of us is to honour the king. I won’t spend a lot of time on this, only to say that we are to respect those in authority over us, pray for them, and obey them as far as the laws of God will allow us. Beyond that point, God will step in on our behalf (go back and read the Old Testament). God Himself has allowed our leaders to be in positions of authority over us whether we like them or not. In the military we were trained to salute and obey those in authority over us despite our personal feelings about the person wearing the rank. We respected the authority, we respected the position they held whether we liked the person or not. The Bible tells us it is God Who establishes the throne and it is He Who will remove those He chooses. He goes on to tell us we are to pray for them regardless of our own personal feelings. Our lives are not our own anyway – we have been purchased by the Blood of Jesus Christ, therefore I don’t have a valid opinion anymore. My opinion is displaced by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God and the will of God for my life.
As we fully press in to 2025, it is my honor to continue coming to you and sharing life with you. May we take this admonition of the Apostle Peter to heart, and may we implement his words of guidance and wisdom in our lives. May the fullness of God’s blessing rest upon us and all men this year.
Be blessed.
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