Honor All People

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

So you want to have a radio program.  We have a few rules, and here’s one of them:  no bashing on other people.

Yes, you can talk about what is true.  You can talk about what is being done wrong.  You can even talk about people who are doing wrong, but the rule stands:  no bashing on other people.*

“But Doug, what about their politics?  What about their lifestyle?  What about their bad doctrine?  What about their evil ways, their deceptions, their cunning, conniving, crafty, criminal lives?”

I don’t care what they’ve done.  I don’t care what they’ve said or what they’re promoting.  If they are out of bounds you can point that out, but you don’t trash them in the process.

Why not?  Where does that come from?  Is it even possible?

In First Peter chapter 2 verse 17 we encounter three of the most powerful words you will ever read in all of the Scriptures.  It says, “Honor all people…”

Honor all people.

Now why would that be in the Bible when there are clearly people and actions and ideas that are dishonorable?

It’s because God, as always, is setting for us the very highest standard.  

Do you want to live at the very highest standard?  Are you ready to rise above the fray, to live at a new level in your walk with God?

Then honor all people.

And what about their dishonorable attributes?  Do we ignore them?  Skip over them?  Make light of them?

Of course not, but we approach every single person on the planet with honor.  

Why?

Because they are people, creations of God, created in His image, and thus they are worthy of honor.

Listen.  Every single human being is an image bearer of God, and that alone makes them worthy of honor.  

And then to whatever degree each of us is living outside of God’s boundaries of what is truly honorable, then that is where God’s redemption must come in and do its work.

And if we really want to open the door for the good news, the glad tidings of God’s redemption through Jesus Christ, we have to realize that it won’t happen by bashing on people.  

Romans 2:4 says that it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance.

Is there anyone on the planet whom you disrespect, even despise, and you would rejoice at their downfall?

Then stop it.  There’s a better way.  There’s a higher way.  Are you ready to live at the very highest level of Christianity?

Then here’s the thing to do, and it’s found in these three simple words in First Peter chapter 2 verse 17.

Honor all people.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

* We speak the truth in love.  We let our speech always be with grace, that it may impart grace to the hearers.  

One side note:  Peter wrote this at the time when Nero was living his abominable life as the emperor of Rome, and that included doing terrible things to Christians, and yet the last three words of that same verse say, “…honor the king.”  Wow.