Living Honorably
1 Timothy 5 is a chapter about Living Honorably. Verse 3 speaks about honor, verse 17 speaks about double honor. Throughout this message I want us to think about the importance of living honorable lives. Today, more than ever, we need to honor others, teach our children and grandchildren to live honorably.
Honoring doesn’t stop at the door of the building—God wants us to live honorably, and to extend honor to all. So then, with that under our belt, we begin at verses 1 and 2 with the idea of Honoring Each Other – “1 Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity.” (1 Tim. 5:1-2)
I don’t know about you all—but when was young speaking to my father or my mother in a disrespectful tone—was met with a severe and immediate rebuke—which included a corrective rod. Consider the significance, and the warnings in these two scriptures as we expound on the idea of living honorably. “You are to rise in the presence of the elderly and honor the old. Fear your God; I am the LORD.” (Lev. 19:32, CSB). “The eye that mocks his father, and scorns obedience to his mother, the ravens of the valley will pick it out, and the young eagles will eat it” (Prov. 30:17).
Paul no doubt affixed great value on the souls of all, and the apostle would have Timothy, and, for the same reason, every other Christian be a model of this same virtue. Honor is something that must be extended outward, it must be seen, heard and felt. The number one way that is done is by the way we speak to each other….