Respect

Respect

We paid our human fathers respect, it says in Hebrews 12:9. This is how it usually was in those days! Now, respect is a foreign concept! It is like a foreign language that is no longer understood!

However, it is completely biblical and in accordance with the New Testament to respect your father and mother, those who are older in years as well as those who are older in Jesus Christ, the elders in the church, and especially those among them who are ministers of the Word as well as those who are your superiors in your earthly work, who employ you in daily life.

Wives are to show respect to their husbands. Eph. 5:33. Of course! Because the husband is her head (irrespective of what kind of a husband he is). How he conducts himself is up to him! It is up to her to respect him! Being a busybody in other people’s matters is a great sin; it is in the same category as the basest things! 1 Pet. 4:15.

“Count their own masters worthy of all honor . . . .” 1 Tim. 6:1. In other words, no “ifs” or “buts!” In short: Worthy of all honor, regardless of how their other subordinates view them. We must go by God’s view in the matter—without exception!

Jesus said, “You dishonor Me.” John 8:49. How do we do that? To a great extent we do it by spurning many of His words by disregarding them, by not considering them in dead earnest, with the result that we just let them be without paying close attention to them and without making any effort to follow them wholeheartedly. In spite of this, people act as if everything were in order! What impertinence! What presumption! What impermissible, shameful, and fateful superficiality!!!

In the deepest sense, then, we actually don’t care what God’s Word says, and what God’s will is! We don’t care about it and we quite simply and naturally do what we want. Then we do not realize in the least what a bad state we are in! Therefore we have this word, “Awake, you who sleep . . . .” Eph. 5:14.

There is an especially significant word in Malachi 1:6: “A son honors his father, and a servant his master.” This is how it was at that time. This was common and natural. The son honored his father, and the servant honored his master.

How much more must we not honor our heavenly Father, and our heavenly Master so that we follow all the words of life in the New Testament precisely, in all our deeds—in thought, word and action—with great zeal and great joy, to His great honor and praise; and to the great blessing and joy of ourselves and like-minded ones, for time and eternity!

In the deepest sense, we shall honor and fear Him alone! And of course it is the Father and the Son whom we honor when we honor the persons the Word commands us to honor! We ought to fear to displease God in the least by transgressing one of His commands and precepts (all of which are to be viewed as standing orders from the Most High), or by neglecting any of all the good and useful things that we have opportunity to do! Jas. 4:17.