Honor All Men (1-16-12)

1 Peter 2:17 - "Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king."

In this short verse we're given four commands back to back, and right now I just want to focus on the first one: "honor all men." The word honor here means to respect or revere. It's the same word used by Jesus in John 8:49 where He says - "I honor My Father." Jesus also used this word in John 12:26 when He said - "if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him." We're told in John 5:23 to honor the Son equally with the Father, and this is also the word used by God when He commands - "Honor your father and mother." So it is this same 'honor' that we're told to give to all men. The same honor that Christ gave to the Father, the same honor that we are to give to the Father and the Son we are told in the same way to "honor all men." I've looked into this passage and into the words used here to try and find a loophole, but there isn't one. There are about ten different tenses of the word 'all' in the Greek, and most of them merely mean a majority, but the word used here radically means 'all.' And the word 'men' literally means mankind, or people. So in the command "honor all men" we don't have any holes to jump through and we have no good excuses for disobeying it. We need to honor all men, whether it's the president of the United States, or a homeless person. Whether they're a fellow believer, someone who goes to your church, or an ungodly co-worker, an atheist or even if they part of a false religion and are leading people straight to hell, our command doesn't change. Honor all men really means honor all men. Even if we don't necessarily like someone we are still commanded to honor them. It's understandable that we should honor those who do not know God but are not outwardly opposed to him, but why and how can we honor atheists and leaders of false religions and others who are outwardly, vocally and sometimes violently opposed to God? The Bible tells us that Christ died for all, He took the sin of the whole world upon Himself at Calvary, even the sins of those who outwardly oppose Him. The Bible also says that we were once enemies of God, and yet even when we were His enemies He died for us. If Christ loved us enough to die for us while we were still His enemies, how can we do less than obey His command to honor those He died for? We're also told in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 that the unbelieving have been blinded by Satan that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. And In 2 Timothy chapter 2 we're told that those who oppose Christ have been caught in the snare of the devil and are now held captive by him to do his will.
Other people, people who oppose Christ and His gospel are not the enemy, but they are held captive by him. The Bible says in Ephesians 6:12 - "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." This is how it reads in the Phillips New Testament - "For our fight is not against any physical enemy: it is against organizations and powers that are spiritual. We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world, and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil." Despite their doctrine and views of God, no man is our enemy. Satan is our enemy (and we're never told to honor him). Those who oppose our Lord are simply held captive by the devil in a spiritual war between good and evil. They are prisoners of Satan, held captive by him to do his will. And despite their beliefs we need to honor them. Pray for them. Speak the truth to them in love, do not tolerate their false teaching, but honor them nonetheless.

1 Peter 2:17 - "Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king."