Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor.
– 1 Peter 2:17
What a verse. Just think about what God is calling us to do. According to this 1 Peter 2:17, honor everyone, like everyone. Honor the people who you love and the people you are close to. And the people who love you and care for you. Honor them. There’s so many ways that can play out in our lives on a daily basis to honor the people around us and honor people who don’t love you.
Honor people who don’t honor you. Honor people who hate you. And honor people who work against you. Honor people who hurt you. Honor everyone. That’s what the word says. And if we didn’t get it the first time at the very end of this 1 Peter 2:17, it says honor the emperor and think about who that was for these Christians who were suffering persecution.
1 Peter 2:17 Tells Us to Honor Even Ungodly Leaders
The emperor was the one who was overseeing their persecution, who was making it happen. Honor even ungodly leaders who are working to harm you. Honor them and then love the brotherhood. Love the church. Love your family in Jesus. Do everything you can to go out of your way, to love the church and do all of this in the fear of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
God, please help us to obey 1 Peter 2:17 to do what you were calling us to do in your word here. God, we pray. You would help us to honor everyone. And to know how to do that. What does this look like in our lives? How can we honor the people who are close to us, who we spend a lot of time with. God help us to treat them with honor in our homes, in our closest relationships, whatever those look like, help us to honor each other, help us to honor people who we are close to and will spend time with today.
1 Peter 2:17 Calls Us to Honor Everyone
And God, we pray you help us to honor people we meet here or there, in a store at a restaurant. Help us to honor those who are waiting on our table or doing this or that job and this or that way. Help us to honor them. And God, we pray teach us to honor even our enemies. Even those who seek to harm us. God, what does that look like? Help us to honor leaders, even ungodly leaders.
God, what does that look like? Help us to pray for them. We know that’s a part of honoring them, but to treat them with honor. Help us and help us to love your church. God, we pray you’d help us to love the brotherhood, the sisterhood around us. God, we pray that you’d help us to love brothers and sisters in Christ well, in a way that shows your love to a watching world.
This Leads Us to Pray for the Afghan Church to Honor Everyone
And God we pray you’d help us to do all of this in the fear of you. God, please help us to grow in our fear of you. God, as we pray for Afghanistan this month, we pray specifically that you would help your church there to do these things.
We pray that you’d help your church to love one another well, to honor everyone, including those who seek to harm them can help them to know what that looks like, and help pastors there to shepherd your church to honor everyone, love the brotherhood and ultimately to fear you. God, we pray this over them. God, we pray this over our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan, even as we pray this in our own lives. In Jesus’ name, we pray according to first Peter, 2:17. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
