Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 7
Peter’s commands are stacked: “Honor everyone… Love the brotherhood… Fear God… Honor the emperor,” and the speaker distinguishes honor (valuing) from love (pouring out life, promoting, preferring); how do you decide what it means to “honor” someone whose beliefs you cannot “stand behind,” and where do modern Christians confuse “honor” with endorsement or “love” with mere niceness?
Another way to ask: How do you “honor” someone you strongly disagree with without pretending you support their views? Where do Christians today mix up honor with endorsement, or love with just being nice?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
In the transcript, honoring someone means assigning them value in your mind and then showing it in words and actions, even if you cannot “promote” what they stand for. Love goes further for fellow believers: it involves sacrifice, sharing, time, and preference—more than polite niceness.
- He asks, “How do we honor someone? We give them value… first of all, in our minds, then also in our actions.”
- He applies it broadly: “Honor everyone,” meaning value them “in my words, and in my actions towards them.”
- He distinguishes honor from promotion: authorities may be honored because “they’re ordained by God,” yet “I can’t necessarily promote them because they may stand for things that I can’t stand behind.”
- He defines love as costly: “pour out my life… sacrifice… share… spend lots of time… promote them… prefer them above myself.”
- He implies modern reductionism: love is not merely “I say a kind word… here and there.”