respect and honor

What does respecting someone mean? What does honoring someone mean?

A recent Bible Study on Malachi 1:6-2:9 made me not only reflect upon the honor God deserves and demands from us, but also realize that I have little clue of what respecting someone means. When I was growing up, I don't remember having an authority figure whom I decidedly found myself drawn to respect. If I have no experience of ever genuinely respecting someone who physically stand in front of me, how do I respect and honor Someone whom I have not seen? The realization quite shook me.

There were a few distant figures whom I admired at some points in my life, like C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, and John Stott. But that's not quite the same. In the U.S education system, whether I'm teaching in a university classroom setting or giving private piano lesson, even students would demand respect from me, their teacher. And respect is always called for amidst our interaction with others, almost regardless of circumstance. Yet, isn't that more "courtesy" rather than respect that we really render?

We could be courteous, polite, and even "respectful" without respecting that person? Consider how most employees deal with their bosses in front of and then behind them? That's not genuine respect.

What's respect? When God demands that we give him the honor due Him, the respect due Him, what does that mean? I suppose the priests in Malachi 1:6 got very little idea. That's why God uses the analogy of the honor of a father given by a son, of the respect of a master given by a slave.

尊敬不是客套、更不是陽奉陰違。

Respect is more than courtesy. It's giving him the honor he deserves because of who he is, what he does, the role/responsibility given him.


p.s. Unplanned, this entry seems to relate to my recent blog entry humility is more than diplomacy.