Honour Everyone
In my first year at university my roommate was an excellent juggler. He would spend hours practising all sorts of impressive tricks, throwing a ball from under his knee and catching it behind his back, and the like. Occasionally, I would give it a try as well. Now, I’m pretty good at juggling with one ball (also known as ‘catching’), but when it comes to two, three, or four balls I am absolutely hopeless!
Pastoring a church over these past few months has at times felt like something of a juggling act, with so many new things to learn and extra things to keep in mind. Lockdowns, zoom meetings, online preaching, social distancing, face masks, hand sanitiser, government regulations, church closures, and so on…
In the midst of trying to juggle all of these different things, there has been one verse of Scripture in particular that has helped to focus my mind as we have tried to steer the church through these difficult waters. The verse is 1 Peter 2:17:
“Honour everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the emperor.”
In this verse, the apostle Peter succinctly sets out four relationships in which we, as the church, are called to fulfil our God-given duties.
1) Honour everyone
As Christians here on earth, we live in the midst of an unbelieving society. We are ‘sojourners and exiles’ here (2:11), and how we conduct ourselves in relation to wider society is of great importance to our witness in the world. To that end, we are to show honour to ‘everyone’ in society. Peter writes, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” (2:12)
Over the past few months, perhaps more than ever, the church has been under scrutiny from the world around as they watch to see if we are being reckless or responsible members of society. Especially at a time like this, may the world see that our conduct as the church is indeed ‘honourable’, as they see our good deeds, and in due course may they come to glorify God with us.
2) Love the brotherhood
How precious is the fellowship we have with our brothers and sisters in Christ! But in recent days this fellowship has been hindered greatly. For a total of seventeen Sundays in 2020, churches here in Northern Ireland were asked not to gather publicly for worship, and in addition to this many Christians have been physically separated from fellow believers due to shielding, or having to self-isolate, or as a result of living in a care home and not being able to receive visitors. It has been a great encouragement to me to have seen how those in the church family in Crumlin have rallied around to show loving fellowship to those who are most severely affected by the restrictions: a phone call, a text message, a card, a doorstep visit, help with shopping, and so forth. Under the current difficult circumstances, what can you be doing to ‘love the brotherhood’?
3) Fear God
Our highest calling and greatest duty is, of course, to worship our God, serving him and glorifying him in all that we do. Earlier on in this chapter, Peter has described the church in these majestic terms:
“you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…” (2:5)
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” (2:9)
How challenging it has been to seek to live for God’s glory when so many of our regular activities as the church have been interrupted or restricted in recent days. As church leaders, we have been forced to make quick decisions about how to ‘do’ church in the circumstances, and this has not been easy. But, regardless of COVID, our chief end in all things must remain the glory of God.
4) Honour the Emperor
As members of society, we also have duties to fulfil in relation to the civil authorities, to whom we are called to submit (Romans 13:1ff) and for whom we are called to pray (1 Timothy 2:1-3). Peter describes our relationship to the civil authorities in verses 13-15:
“Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.”
2020 was certainly an unexpected year as far as the interaction between the church and the state is concerned, as we responded to ever-changing regulations and guidelines. Whatever you may think of the legitimacy, effectiveness or necessity of some of these measures, the fact remains that we are called to show honour in our relationship to the authorities.
I trust that 2021 will be a more straightforward year than this year has been for the church, but whatever the next year has in store may we, by God’s grace, fulfil each of these four God-given duties: honour everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honour the emperor.
Andy is Minister of Crumlin EPC in Northern Ireland
