Meditating on 1 Timothy 5.
Having had my eyes opened to this notion of “honour” as a life principle when I wrote the 2024 Week 09 devotion guide, and having had more time to think about it since I had used the guide this week, some of my thoughts have become clearer.
“Honour” is in the sense of “giving due regard”, as in “honour your father and mother” and not in the sense of “pride and glory”. I had noted in the 2024 Week 09 guide that the fifth command is the first that is not directed towards God. In truth, the rest of the 10 Commandments also carry this idea of “honour”.
- Honour life (you shall not murder)
- Honour the marriage bed/vows (you shall not commit adultery)
- Honour rights (you shall not steal)
- Honour truth (you shall not give false testimony)
- Honour your neighbour (you shall not covet what belongs to your neighbour), as in allowing the other to have equal validity as you do
What I have come to realise is that God has embedded into the life he had created key principles and we do well to recognise and honour these principles. Paul, in his writings, has made clear some of these principles:
- Honour authority (Romans 13)
- Honour the differences in age, sex, roles in society (1 Timothy 5)
- Honour the poor and powerless (1 Timothy 5)
- Honour honest labour (2 Thessalonians 3)
Paul calls for orderliness in the practice of worship (1 Corinthians 14) and there, and in many other instances, he established rules of conduct by arguing from rational logic, assuming that we should honour intelligent thinking and logical conclusions. He does so from the foundation of biblical truth, ensuring that his conclusions are godly conclusions.
All of these is towards my thinking that God’s wisdom is embedded in life and we do well to honour these truths rather than will them away (LGBTQ+ to replace the binary male and female, for example). Ecclesiastes is a good example of someone who found wisdom by observing life on earth—wisdom that we can learn and benefit from—even though there is the more foundational truth about God that must shape all our wisdom (which Ecclesiastes alludes to at the end).
(My reflections on 1 Timothy 4-6 include “Honour” as a life principle, The corruption of the mind, Godliness with contentment, and True spirituality.)