Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king. (1 Peter 2:17 KJV)
It's interesting that Peter puts 'fear God' in the middle of this verse instead of at the beginning. If one truly fears God all the rest will fall into place. But maybe there is good reason for this order.
It was easy to honour other people. It was easy to love other Christians. But at the time of this writing Nero was in power. It was very hard to honour someone such as Nero and so I think the exhortation to fear God came at this point in the verse for a very good reason. If you feared God, you would be able to honour Nero. Notice, he didn't say like him. He said honour him. Just like you can do loving things for some you don't love, you can also honour someone who is dishonorable and whom you dislike. When you fear God you can do this.
How does this apply to me today? I have a lot of work to do to honour the present administration. It's hard to know where to draw the line between disrespect and telling the truth about the occupant of the White House. Perhaps it has to do with attitude? When does it cross over from telling the truth about what he is doing to character assassination? These are things I need to ponder.
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