Does God want our obedience, or respect, or both?

Question 1.

Does God want your

a) Obedience

b) Respect

c) Both of the above

(circle the correct answer)

'God doesn't want your respect, he wants your obedience' - so said the preacher.

And...No I don't agree with that statement, but let me give you some background to the statement and maybe what could have been said instead and why I want to bring your attention to it.

The sermon was a great sermon, by a prominent and great preacher. He was speaking about Uzzah in the Old Testament - you remember?…the guy in 2 Samuel 6:6-7 who thought he was helping protect the Lord's 'Ark of the Covenant' when it looked like it was going to fall after the oxen who were carrying it, stumbled. He put out his hand to stop it falling, and in doing so he touched the Ark - which was forbidden.

The preacher, helpfully explained that all Uzzah was doing was wanting to show some respect to the Lord's Ark.

The preacher went on to say but 'God doesn't want your respect, he wants your obedience'. 

Let's think about this for a moment, in a few ways.

1. Lets think about whether honour and obedience should be contrasted as the antithisis of each other or the opponents/threats of each other. 

God definitely does want your obedience, BUT is obedience to God the only thing that God wants, in contrast to not wanting your respect?

Respect is another word for honour, so does God really not want you to give him honour?

Romans 1:21 tells us that God definitely wants us to honour him, and in fact the big problem in our world, says God through the Apostle Paul in this verse, is that God is not honoured. And not just that, but that God is not honoured as God. In other words, not only does God want honour, he wants a unique, highest, supreme honour in our lives. He requires the greatest honour of all.

So what is going on here, in the preacher's comment?

I wonder whether sectors of the Western church are so 'reacting' against those who wish to point out that more attention needs to be put towards the 'honour' aspects of Scripture, when so much is usually put to concepts of guilt, law and obedience, that they are 'over-reacting' and inclined to not only lessen the importance of the place of 'honour', but even without realising it, 'demonize' it. 

Honour is made out to be an inferior quality to obedience, and thus if you settle for honour, you settle for less. Here in the story of Uzzah, the preacher implied that Uzzah in being concerned about 'respect' [honour] was concerned about the wrong thing, and it was so dangerous a concern that God struck him dead immediately! Honour is seen as the thief of the priority, the best, and the proper focus on obedience, as well as a reason for life to be removed from us.

But honour and obedience are not a dichotomy, and furthermore, not opponents. They are not in a battle for validity in God's eyes.  In fact as Romans 1 points out, honour of God is imperative.

2. Let's think about whether a fallen mis-placed concept of honour is clouding our vision as to the place of true properly-placed honour.

Is it wrong to honour God?  Romans tells us not. Not only is it definitely right to honour God, it is an unequivocal and imperative requirement.

But it is wrong to honour God with our own idea of what honouring God should look like, with no regard/respect [honour] of how God defines and demands honour of himself to be.

This is where we go wrong.

We can 'think' we are honouring God, we can tell ourselves we are 'doing right by God', but if the honour is not according to God's definition of 'right', then we will think we do right when in fact in God's eyes we do wrong.

This was Uzzah's problem. He had a noble intention, but it was according to his own understanding and not God's requirements. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to not rely on our own understanding but to acknowledge God (put his ideas and definitions above our own) in everything. Uzzah's noble motive was misplaced, not because it is wrong to honour, or wrong to honour God, or because God doesn't require honour, but because Uzzah didn't trust God. He didn't understand that to truly honour God is to obey God. We don't get to define what honouring God looks like, God does. And God tells us what honour looks like by giving us commands to obey. When we obey him, we honour him. When we disobey him, we dishonour him.

This story is not one about Uzzah opting for honour when he should have opted for obedience. This story is about Uzzah who did what was 'right' in his own eyes, in his own understanding, all the while thinking that his definition of honouring God would be automatically acceptable to God as honouring him. But it wasn't.  And still today, our own ideas about what honours God are not the standard God has for the definition of honouring him.

3. Emphasising honour is not the cause of the lack of obedience, rather a wrong and weak emphasis on honour for God, propels disobedience to God.

Our problem is not that we talk too much about honouring God, or that if we talk more about honouring God that people will think they can be less careful to obey God. No, our problem is that we talk too little about what right honour of God looks like and how God defines honour.  

We run into the problems when either as differing groups or differing individuals we define what we think exemplifies respect or honour or dignity, without reference to the One who not only created us but who also defined those concepts in the first place. Any residue of those concepts that we seek or think we attain are but weak, broken, unreliable and twisted images of the original intention of our Creator. When we seek after them, they will disappoint and when we use them as our standard of good and right, we  will find ourselves with empty hope in the present, and being condemned in judgement in the future eternity. 

 When we have a wrong view of what honour for God is, we will inevitably end up practicing a lifestyle of disobedience to God. We will make wrong choices, damaging choices, self-destructive choices, and others-harming choices.  When we don't have a high enough view of honouring God, we will not only be disinclined to obey God where he has laid down specific commands, but we will feel there is no particular application of holiness we are called to outside of those particular commands. Yet if God doesn't give a particular command or direction about something which we are meant to obey, there is always the overarching governing context of honouring God. 

We need to think beyond the Bible as being an instruction book which if it doesn't address something particular in a 'do this' or 'do not do this' manner we are free to do what we like. We need to also see God's word as showing us himself and his character--his honour—and what it therefore (descriptively and prescriptively) looks like to honour him, his way.

The Problem of Forgiving Yourself

Have you ever felt like you need to forgive yourself?  Have you had someone else suggest you just need to forgive yourself?  Even after confessing your sin to God and knowing he promises he forgives you (1 John 1:9), do you sometimes feel like its not enough?

Why do we sometimes feel this way?

Randy Alcorn recently wrote a really helpful article on this and challenged his readers to think through a few issues. Let me quickly summarise them as they are important. But then I want to look at something which I think may additionally be feeding this self-forgiveness desire.

Alcorn raises four main considerations:

• Talk Back to the Devil - he is a liar and accuser and he will want you to feel that God's forgiveness is not enough, but you can refuse to listen to his deceptions
• God is not a liar - His forgiveness is enough and to not accept his forgiveness as sufficient is to say that Christ's sacrifice wasn't enough, and that absolution from ourselves is of greater importance in our lives than forgiveness from God 
• Trust God's Word not your Feelings - we have to learn to trust God more than our feelings. When God's promises and our feelings don't match up, faith is about choosing to trust the one who is more trustworthy - God, not us.
• It's all about Christ - his work on the cross is sufficient and is enough. Forgiveness is about Christ's righteousness imputed to us, not our righteousness. We don't have the righteous position to be able to offer anyone full eternal forgiveness not even to ourselves. Only God in Christ provides that.

Alcorn also related a poignant quote on the topic, from Tim Keller in his Counterfeit Gods book, 

"When people say, 'I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself,' they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important to them than God's."

When we say we need to forgive ourselves, we are setting ourselves above God, as more vital than God and more capable and authoritative than God. When we do that, we then need forgiveness not only from God for whatever sin we have committed, but for the additional sin of thinking we have any capacity at all to truly forgive ourselves.

HOWEVER…..

having said all this, do we dismiss our feelings altogether in such situations?

Feelings are vital signposts

Maybe we need to think a bit more about the role and place of feelings in our lives…

Feelings are not irrelevant, and to just say 'ignore your feelings, they are lying to you' may not help much.

Feelings are signposts to beliefs, because they are the fruit of beliefs. Feelings to a great degree are a reaction to something. We fear because we think something is a threat or bigger than or contrary to our ability to cope. We get angry when something challenges our autonomy or we see injustice. We feel loved when we feel valuable and blessed by others. We feel happy when we are surrounded by good, by what is pleasing and refreshing and we believe to be beneficial. We hurt when we believe we are harmed in some way. 

Sometimes feelings can be an alert system. Since they respond almost intuitively and 'automatically' in response to when something does or does not sit well, or comfortably, sometimes we will say before making a decision: 'I just don't feel right about it although I can't yet explain it'. This should be what then triggers us to pause on making the decision, but also prompts us to find out more of maybe why we didn't feel comfortable. So we do some more research, or dig into God's word more, or pray about it further, or wait till we can know more contributing data etc.

Now these feelings can lie to us - they can deceive us. Not so much because the feelings themselves are bad, but because what we believe to be good, beneficial, just, pleasing or valuable, might be not based on God's truth about such things, but might be based on Satan's temptations to trust in a false 'good' - ie what appears to be good but is in fact against God's perfect design and thus is bad.  That is what happened to Eve in the Garden of Eden.  And since we are now sinners by nature, even as Christians, we still fight the presence of the old nature in these unresurrected bodies as we live on this sin-infected earth on which the great deceiver is still busy prowling about.

So we are very easily tempted to believe and be guided by false or mis-placed ideas about what is good for us and the world. When that false ideal of 'good' is not met we can feel sad or mad!

So instead of feeling sad and mad about sin, 

we can easily feel sad and mad about 

our own sinful desires not being met!

So yes, we can get 'feelings' all mixed up and upside-down to how God created us to have them.  

But those same feelings can be 'shout-outs' to us about what is going on in our hearts which we are often not so alert to. Remember the heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), and when we listen to our heart's desires and follow our heart's desires without submitting them to God through the standard of His Word, we can be misled by the desires of our hearts. We could say that feelings are like symptoms of a deeper cause. 

If we are seeking to follow God's directives through the truth of His Word, but we continue to struggle with feelings that his Word tell us are not honouring him, then its the signal to stop, think and examine our hearts to see where we have mis-placed and false beliefs, and thus expectations, that are feeding these mis-placed feelings.

Feelings for the need of self-forgiveness are therefore signposts to what?

And if there is a continued nagging of a need for self-forgiveness even after you have studied, accepted and embrace the 4 points Alcorn raises, what then?

Maybe we need to ask what is understood by forgiveness?

Forgiveness is linked to a need for cleansed guilt. It is a primarily guilt/innocence issue. It is a need for wiping the slate clean, to have no accusation standing against us. From such a forgiven state, we then hope for a re-opening of the relationship. In seeking forgiveness from God we acknowledge that he has the power to set the rules, declare guilt and thus give punishment, and he has an accusation against us for something that we did that was a violation of his desires (law/command) for us, and which has thus broken the joy of the relationship we are meant to have with him. 

Forgiveness from God is his promise/word to us that he will not count that violation against us. This thus allows the fullness of relationship with him to be enjoyed. When we wrong another person, and seek their forgiveness it is a similar situation - we have done something they don't approve of and so we believe they are accusing us of contravening their requirements/instructions/rules and their good, and thus we are cut off from the full harmony of relationship with them.

So when we say we seek forgiveness from ourselves, we are saying we have set a law for ourselves, and then broken it, and so now have accused ourselves and stand guilty according to our own law. We feel we have violated or broken our own rules and we want restored relationship with ourselves.

Now that last phrase might sound peculiar - how can we lose relationship with ourselves in the first place…after all, are we two people? No. But it is helpful to realise that this is the logic underlying what is hoped to be achieved by 'forgiving yourself'.

Muddied Waters

Interestingly I don't notice Africans worrying about self-forgiveness, they seem to be more worried about forgiveness from others because traditionally it is believed that harmony with others gives them right standing with God - albeit a distant God and via the ancestors who they believe to be God's representatives/intermediaries on earth.

I believe this idea of self-forgiveness has come about because our 'modern' world thought itself 'clever' enough to live apart from God. 

But in doing so, we not only set ourselves on the path of eternal destruction, but we find ourselves living the way we were never designed to live. 

We were not created to be 

autonomous individuals 

only accountable to ourselves. 

We were not designed to live only according to 'our own truth' and to only be true to ourselves. 

In Western culture we might have been told to not be directed by other people's wishes, but we failed to realise that this was originally rooted in a Judeo-Christian context that permeated much of Western thinking, of being directed by God's wishes above people. But if we cut God out, and cut people out, and live only according to our own law, we get ourselves in a fix. If we are only accountable to ourselves as makers of our own laws. Then we have, by default, appointed only ourselves to be in the position of authority to forgive.  We suddenly train ourselves to 'need' to forgive ourselves in order to find absolution.  

Sadly, if we still believe that when we have wronged others we need to seek their forgiveness, but find we then find that forgiveness insufficient, our world does not tell us that we more importantly need God's forgiveness (since it believes God is unecessary or doesn't exist). Instead our 21st Century Western world tells us that the 'gap' we feel in the forgiveness process is because we need to forgive ourselves…. since afterall 'self' is the only final authority we have committed allegiance to.

Added to this, is the fact that we often confuse guilt and shame in how we feel. We might say we feel guilty for transgressing our own law/rules, but we might also feel ashamed for failing to meet our own standard and failing 'in our own eyes' to 'make the grade' and be who we hoped or wanted to be. In seeking forgiveness for our transgression we might be trying to restore our sense of honour - our value, worth, and significance. 

But whether we assess ourselves on the basis of guilt or shame, if we have set ourselves up as our own lawmaker (what laws and boundaries we set ourselves) and our own honour-bestower (what credit we gain for meeting the standards/expectations we set ourselves), we also set ourselves up to be the ones we look to for guilt-forgiveness and shame-covering when we over-step our self-made boundaries and when we under-meet our self-made expectations.

God has made us to find honour and forgiveness from the one who sets the laws and standards in the first place. So, when we replace God with ourselves as the authority/law-maker, we may find a slight sense of 'feeling ok' once we 'forgive ourselves'. But it will leave us still 'lacking' something. It's won't satisfy the deepest realities of our lives and it will keep us from the One who can fully satisfy and the One who promises to fully forgive, cleanse,  justify and sanctify.

The Big Lie

The big lie in the 'forgive yourself' mantra, is that we think we can be in the place of God and all will be well.  All will not be well on earth, and all will definitely not be well in eternity. 

Maybe you are busy forgiving yourself and not seeking God's forgiveness at all and have never accepted his forgiveness for all your sin for eternity.  If so, I encourage you to come to God to find his ultimate forgiveness for your sins through the death of his Son Jesus on the cross.

But its more likely if you are reading this you have accepted his eternal forgiveness and have no doubt that only God can provide such forgiveness and you certainly cannot…but maybe you are still living with the legacy of the world's modern but mis-informed understanding and influence that has trained you to believe you need self-forgiveness and that without it you can't live well on this earth. 

But the God who can forgive you for all eternity is the same God who forgives you now. 

It is a lie and bondage of the devil that you need to forgive yourself. It is subtle idolatry that entraps you and blasphemes God.  

We are not our own law, 

or our own truth, 

or the bestowers of our own honour. 

We have been made not to find fulfilment and peace through relationship with ourself, but through relationship with God. We are not bound by laws/rules or standards of our own making, but by God's laws and standards which are not only different from ours but higher than ours. God the ultimate law maker is also the ultimate forgiver. If you have ultimate forgiveness from him, forgiveness from human beings (others or yourself) is not the measure of whether you are forgiven or not.

So….Let the truth of who God is, and that he is the ultimate law maker, and honour bestower, transform you and release you from mis-placed feelings that make you think you need to forgive yourself. Let God transform your feelings by soaking in his truth about forgiveness, so that your feelings can be changed from ones that Satan uses to condemn you and paralyse you, to ones of praise and joy to your Maker and Saviour which release you to serve him with fervour and delight!  

Balanced or Biblical? 3 needs for missionaries from guilt-innocence contexts!

In the last few days 2 blog posts (one from honorshame.com and one from Jackson Wu) have emerged countering a recent TGC article titled '5 Dangers for Missionaries in Honor-Shame Contexts'.

I doubt the TGC article (which first appeared at IMB) is meant to just create trouble, but it has definitely caused a response.

Both honorshame.com and Jackson Wu responses raise valid concerns, just as Elliot Clark, author of the TGC article most probably felt he raised valid concerns.

I don't really want to just fuel an argument, but my concern is that there seems a desire for 'balance' in a context where honorshame.com point out there is currently little balance, but in the opposite way in which the TGC article is concerned about.

Clark, is worried that with the growing realisation and understanding of honour-shame dynamics in cultures around the world and in Scripture that we are in danger of losing a guilt-innocence-obedience context of the gospel.

I totally agree that with any 'new' understanding any of us are in danger of pushing so hard on that, in order to correct a previously wrong emphasis, that we 'keep pushing' beyond the point of 'balancing' the pendulum swing. When we do that we risk the possibility of dangerous overcorrecting. The refreshing  re-awakening to Scripture's honour-shame aspects cannot be expected to be exempt from this human tendancy. But like the honorshame.com cartoon illustrates, we are a long way from an honour-shame over-emphasis in biblical scholarship and Christian literature and preaching and missions, especially when we look at the last 50 years or so in the West.

The whole reason for my local African Theologian co-worker  and I writing our book 'Highest Honour' (just printed here in Africa and shortly to be available on-line) was to have a discipleship tool. In a world where there are hundreds if not thousands of discipleship programs from a guilt-innocence perspective there just weren't any discipleship programs available that we could find, which addressed honour-shame issues as part of Godly growth in grace, let alone ones appropriate for Africa.

Personally, in ministry I am almost constantly aware not only of making an effort to contextualise appropriately for an honour-shame African context, but to also ensure that guilt-law-innocence contexts are not overlooked and are explained in ways that will be understood.

I understand the fears of the TGC article author, and he is the voice of many others who share similar concerns that guilt-innocence truths of Scripture will be overlooked if the honour-shame focus is too strong.  And yes, we do have to be careful not to 'overcorrect' or just in our zeal, over-emphasise something to the unintentional neglect of other parts of Scripture. I recall very early on in my 'discovery' about honour-shame I was talking with a local theologian about ways to speak the gospel so that honour-shame ears would 'hear' it and I asked about using the word/concepts of guilt. I was in danger of initial overcorrecting, but he was emphatic that alongside honour-shame, to definitely refer to guilt as for the very reason it is not often spoken about, it is 'weighty' and severe when it is spoken about... and when joined with honour-shame concepts would have great impact…and it did.

So I do not deny the caution re pendulum swinging, but this is where we need to realise, that 

guilt-innocence and honour-shame are not two alternative opposites in a fight for greatest emphasis in missiology, 

but are two God-given partners in co-operation to give us gospel clarity.  

However, they are not, in fact, equal partners.

photo: wikimediacommons

1. Need for Re-instatement of the Bible's Supreme Theme

If I could be so bold as to say, the opposite to Clark's fears, is our real danger.

We in the West, have taken a guilt 'sub-theme' of Scripture and made it the supreme theme. The supreme theme of Scripture is not guilt-innocence. The supreme theme of Scripture is God's glory…His honour. As Jackson Wu pointed out, those such as John Piper have repetatively strongly preached this and written about it. 

Sin is 'coming short of God's glory' (Romans 3:23) We have failed to honour Him - bottom line. (Romans  1:21-23) 

We do well to remember that God first describes sinlessness in Scripture not as 'innocent' or not even as 'innocent and unashamed', but simply 'unashamed'. Scripture has a priority and overarching way to describe sin and it is in honour-shame language not guilt-innocence language. We don't need to make apology for that, it is simply unequivocal reality whether we like it or not.  It is not something to be worried about, but to rejoice in. We can fully embrace the Scriptural (rightly placed) honour-shame emphasis with freedom as we endeavour to bring the gospel to a world with a (mis-placed) honour-shame emphasis.  

If you want an Old Testament example just go to Nathan's confrontation of David's sin in 2 Samuel 12 - probably on of the most well used examples of personal sin in Scripture. As God's messenger, Nathan did not use 'obedience' language but 'honour' language, even in regard to God's word. He didn't tell David he 'disobeyed' God and God's law (though that was certainly true), but that he 'despised' God and God's word. 

The sin problem with our hearts is firstly not an obedience problem but an honour problem. Tedd Tripp even identifies this in regard to how we raise our children in his book 'Shepherding a Child's Heart'. 

We have a regal problem before we have a legal problem.

photo: publicdomain

2. Need to Pursue Biblical Realignment More Than 'Balance'

We don't need 'balance', so much as a major biblical re-alignment.

Scripture talks far more about shame than it does guilt. (see 'The Global Gospel' by Werner Mischke p47)   Scripture is not 'balanced' in that regard. 

Clark in his article mentions the Apostle Paul's reference to the 5th Commandment. Exodus 20 tells us that we are to 'honour our father and mother'.  It does not first tell us to 'obey' but to honour.  There are only two places in Scripture where a command to obey parents is given, as a 'sub-issue' of the main commandment. (both in Paul's letters - Eph 6:1, Col 3:20) So, yes these mentions by Paul do link obedience with honour but not as a couplet of equally weighted terms. Nor does Paul say to honour parents because there is an overarching command to obey parents, but he says for children to obey parents because there is an overarching command to honour father and mother. His basis for 'obeying' is in the foundation of 'honouring'. Obedience is 'within' the honour issue.  

Obeying is more the fruit than the root. 

Scripture isn't 'balanced' on this issue, as we might want to understand balance. 

God starts with an honour context (no shame) in the Garden of Eden, and that theme continues right the way through Scripture till its culmination in Revelation. It's true, within that is the reality of innocence and the need for obedience, but they are not the main issue.  Paul did not say in Romans 1 that God's rebuke and condemnation was because of 'disobedience' but because of 'dishonour'. The thanks we don't give Him, is not just because we are disobedient to a command to 'give thanks', but because our hearts are not inclined as they should be to 'want' to give thanks from a heart that 'wants' to honour Him. 

God looks beyond outward displays of 'obedience' to inward devotion (honour) of the heart.

  

3. Need to Awaken to How Honour Helps Us Understand and Teach Obedience

Clark also seems to fear that if we emphasise honour too much we will be in danger of losing emphasis on obedience. This maybe comes from a mis-understanding that honour-shame emphasis cultures don't have a concept of obedience or law, right and wrong or as he says 'lacks categories for transgression'.  This is not a correct understanding of such cultures. 

The 'law' categories of honour-shame cultures are that you must give honour and you must not bring shame. The thing to obey is the one category of 'always maintain honour and harmony in relationships'. Anything outside of that is seen as taboo, shameful, and wrong. Every culture is sin-infected and lacks the fulness of godly descriptions of God's objective and eternal definitions of right and wrong, and instead lives by its own (to one degree or another) mis-placed definitions. 

We all need our minds renewed with new godly definition of right and wrong. (Romans 12:2)

In fact, since ministering in an honour-shame emphasis culture I have actually come to a greater and wider and deeper understanding of 'obedience' - I have had to - because those around me come at 'obedience' from perspectives that I had not encountered so much in my Western setting. I have found myself more particular in how I deal with the concept of obedience in discipleship because understanding the mis-placed contexts of honour-shame around me, has highlighted the mis-placed understandings of obedience as well. 

When honour is sought before the eyes of people instead of God, then obedience becomes something that takes on a subjective 'near enough is good enough as long as no-one sees or objects', rather than a need to obey completely and exactly no matter who sees.  (I raised this in my article in the Orality Journal and in that article mentioned how even Nabeel Qureshi mentions the matter in his book 'Seeking Allah Finding Jesus'). Understanding honour-shame has increased, not decreased, my understanding of guilt-innocence-obedience.

photo: wikimediacommons

And if we neglect honour-shame perspectives in our guilt-innocence-obedience emphasis Western culture we quickly become legalistic in our attitudes and require 'laws' for everything. We then have a false view that if there isn't a law to tell us not to do something, we are free to do it, when in fact it might be totally disrespectful. So then a lack of honour-shame awareness distorts the place and purpose of obedience and law and a well functioning society…to say nothing of our relationship with God.

1 John 3:4

I used to think that 'lawlessness' (as a definition of sin mentioned by Elliot Clark) meant individual sinful actions of specific disobedience to the law. However, it is far more than that. Rather than a defence that sin is inherently disobedience, this definition of sin tells us that lawlessness is an attitude of total disregard for both the law and the lawgiver as both Charles Spurgeon and John Macarthur explain.  

As Spurgeon says: 'he who dares to break God's Law, seeing that he cannot do it except in the immediate Presence of God, for God is everywhere—he that acts contrary to God's Law before God's own face does, as it were, fling down the gauntlet to his God and defy His power! By such action as that, he either means to declare that God is not almighty, or that Jehovah will not exercise His Omnipotence to defend His honor, or that he, himself, does not care what God does, so he will leave Him to do His worst. Every sin has this venom within its bowels—it is a defiance of the mighty Majesty of God' [i]

– or we could say a 'defiance of Almighty God's place of Highest Kingly Honour'!

John MacArthur in his sermon "The Christian's Incompatability with Sin Part 1" on this passage says: "Everyone is doing sin, practicing sin is engaged in practicing lawlessness. And lawlessness is an attitude.  It is not so much the transgression of the Law, as the indifference to the Law.  Construction here makes sin and lawlessness identical. It's living as if there is no Law. It's living as if there is no law-giver."[ii]

This is about a heart that is 'indifferent' and has no regard or respect for the One who gave and instigated the law. Rather than 1 John 3:4 proving that individual actions of sins of disobedience to the law are transgressions of the law, it is saying that sin (singular) is an attitude of heart that is the very essence of disrespect (dishonour) of both the law and lawgiver…..just as pronounced by the prophet Nathan when he confronted David. 

It was my growing understanding of honour-shame that, rather than hindering, has enabled an enlarged understanding of the meaning of lawlessness and the contexts and concepts of obedience and the law. 

Proverbs 30:9

If we take a look at Proverbs 30:9 "lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God" 

or as the KJV puts it 'take the name of my God in vain',  

or as the New Living translates it 'insult God's holy name', 

and as some other translations including the NIV put it - 'and so dishonour the name of my God',

...Breaking God's law (stealing in this instance), is all about dishonouring Him and His name - who He is - His very being and position as our Creator, the Almighty. Obedience to the law is foundationally rooted in the requirement for us to honour Him.

A biblical emphasis does not detract from a right understanding and teaching of the law and obedience, but I find it more greatly enables it.

Let's not be afraid of encouraging people to come to understand more and more what it means to see Scripture's overarching theme of honour from beginning to end!

[i] defiance meaning bold resistance to authority, open disregard, contempt - dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/defiance 
[ii] http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/62-25 

Changing behaviour requires a change to the Honour Code

A great post was added a short while back to the honorshame.com blog titled

'Do you want to change the world?'

It includes a link to the following video by author of the book 'The Honor Code', Princeton Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah

Take a look at the 3minute video.

Interestingly at the time of the honorshame.com post I was pondering over some notes I had been making about almost the same subject as that little video.....

If we are to impact issues in our world that stem from honour, we have to address them in the context of honour.  

We have to redefine what is honourable.

A Missions Mistake

Legal language and concepts will not impact hearts and minds that are honour focused.

Actions of people - in other words, their behaviour - do not emminate primarily from laws but from values. 

As I think about missions, and missions in Africa in particular, I see an error that 'we' as missionaries and other 'change agents' (such as HIV prevention educators for example)  from the West have made.

We have observed behaviours and seen problems with those behaviours - that they were mis-placed, mistaken or mis-directed or mis-informed.  We wanted to change those behaviours.  That was a noble ideal....but...

We measured and assessed those behaviours (what was acceptable and what was not) based on a plumbline, which instead of being biblical was more about 'cultural christianity' or 'cultural morality'.

We tried to 'correct' behaviours based on new 'rules' or educational 'facts' of what is 'right' and 'wrong' - ie new laws.

We failed to see the extent to which the behaviours stemmed from a value system and the honour shame dynamics of those values.

We were hindered by our Western guilt focus which emphasised behaviours (law) rather than honour/shame which is about values (honour - and more specifically honour of the lawgiver)

Behaviour will never be changed by changing the 'rules' or 'laws' alone.

Values are what determine behaviour.

Who we honour determines who we obey.  Relationships determine rules.

and

Honour encompasses obedience.  

Or to say it another way: our obedience code lies within  - and is subject to - our honour code.

Law is not however, disconnected from honour, for honour and values will inevitably result in laws. We were created to receive and give both love and command.  Right from the Garden of Eden God walked with Adam in a relationship of honour, but He also gave commands (to multiply and have dominion over the earth, and to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil).

We all make laws and thus give commands based on who/what we love, value and honour.

This was of course seen in the recent US Supreme Court decision - they made a legal declaration (law) based on the fact that they valued a 'right to dignity' that included in their thinking a 'dignity' of same-sex marriage.  (see previous blog about this)

Values determine laws.  

Laws only reflects values, they don't determine or control them.  Laws have no power to change values.

Of course Scripture is all about this - God gives laws to His people but no-one is saved by the law, partly because the law is powerless to change our hearts and its our hearts that determine who/what we honour. (Romans 3:20,7, 8:3)

The law can define right and wrong behaviour - and we need laws to do this, but it cannot produce right and wrong behaviour.  

Our conscience makes us uncomfortable with doing what we believe to be wrong and comfortable with doing what we believe to be right. But all we have to do is change the definition of what we believe to be right or wrong according to a change in values, and our conscience is alleviated.

This can be negative - a culture can change its honour values so as to say 'same-sex marriage is ok', but this possibility can also be positive.  As the video above points out - if you change what is understood and believed to be honourable, you will automatically change the 'rules' of right and wrong and behaviour will change.

The power in the gospel comes with changing the honour code.  

Ultimately all godly change comes because we choose to honour God over whatever we honoured before.  In the West we may not have used that language - we may have talked about Christ's 'Lordship' but the truth is the same. Our biggest problem in the Western church is that we neglected teaching what it meant to live honouring Christ as Lord and King, and instead either emphasised His love without Lordship or His laws without love. We went to two extremes of 'easy believism' or 'legalism' instead of teaching about a loving Lord who gave laws.

If we focus on what is valued and honoured and bring truth to these issues so as to change the honour code - to honour God in Christ above all.... then change will come.