This past weekend, I had the opportunity to speak about Honor.  Honestly, there was a lot of prep for me because I really never heard much about the study of the word.  Studying honor from a biblical sense brought much light to it that I think a lot of our culture including church-goers miss.

Often we love to think that honor is a deserved right.  Someone that is worthy of respect, responsibility and a reputation because of their integrity.  Honor then must be something that one earns.  Certainly, there are people and God who do amazing things that “deserve” the notice, but this isn’t what I believe honor is about.

Honor is letting someone see how valuable they are and doing so by giving something of your life away or by changing something about your life to reflect more of the honorable person.

In the Hebrew Old Testament, one of the words is Kebed which is also translated as famine, thunder, a loud cry, someone who is dull in eye sight, someone who refuses to respond to a message and the liver.  The liver gets rid of bad stuff from the body, helps build protein that provides functionality to the cells, and produces the necessary chemicals to break down food to create energy to keep the cells going strong.

Sounds to me like honor is the catalyst to help people gain respect, responsibility and a reputation. Sounds to me like honor is more about empowering the receiver to have functionality and purpose.  Supporting the weak and encouraging the young is something to me that is honorable for someone to do.  Making the elderly people feel energized by taking notice and listening to them to me is something that is honorable for someone to do.

And it seems to me that the way to get honor is to give it. Don’t give honor and you’re just…well, you fill in the blank.

For nearly 1500 years, liturgy such as Ash Wednesday and Lent and other sacramentals were a norm in all Christianity until the Reformation in the mid to late 1500’s.  For me, I grew up totally unaware of such traditions.  Certainly our Baptist church had it’s own traditions and traditions aren’t necessarily bad.  Each denomination or religion can make fun of the other one’s traditions.  Some of them are just funny, honestly: Pancake races on Shrove Tuesday?

Living in New England, I’m more aware of how liturgy has a place in many people’s upbringing and how that plays out in what they expect from a church. I’ve come to see both some advantage and disadvantages of traditions.  Sometimes I think we miss out on some of the advantages of doing liturgy.  Other times, I’m glad we try to get people to think of God outside of liturgy.  That’s really what it’s suppose to be about anyways, right?

Advantages:

• Help people set aside true time and remembrance on what God has done in times past.
• Helps bring the spiritual and the physical senses together to create a holistic feeling of being close to God.
• The more often you do something, the better you can get people excited about it and be organized around the event.

Disadvantages:

• Can cause people to trust in the traditional liturgy to give them spirituality.
• Can become more of a rehearsed action that is separated from truly thinking about it’s significance.
• Can become the “way things have to be” rather than changing it up to ensure the message is understood.

I’m sure there are more advantages and disadvantages? What are some that you can think of?

Paul in the New Testament tells us that all christians are “members of one body” and that when one suffers, we all should suffer with them as well as when one rejoices, we all should rejoice with them.  I saw this graphic this week from Persecution.com.  It shows 52 countries that Christians are persecuted or at least spread of the gospel comes with consequences.  Check out their site. Find ways to pray for and support the Christians in these countries.

In Sex, Lies and Religion, Randy Elrod gains my attention by asking “Have you ever had an experience with God that exceeds your most wild and fulfilling sexual moment? If the answer is no, you are not alone.”

I’d have to admit that for most of the first half of the book, I was lost as to where Randy was truly going.  I thought maybe he was saying that without having real sensual sex, one could not understand true intimacy with God. This might be a problem with singles who should believe that sex outside of marriage is sinful.

The book was in part a history of the lies that culture and religion have created that bends the truth about sex.  It was in part a description of how to have good sex.  It was in part a theology of seeing the body as important as the soul and the injustice religion and culture have put on the value of the senses and the body.  Throughout the book, he interweaves sex physically and spiritually with your mate and with God.  He says that our desires for sex is our desire for God. I felt that it was written from the assumption that the reader is a Christian married person and only mentions briefly what singles are to do.

In the end, the book was more about how sexual lies affect more than our sex lives, they show up in what we believe about God and visa versa.  Ultimately, the intimacy that is lacking in the marriage is also probably lacking with Him.  The last 40 some pages, in my opinion, would have served great at the beginning of the book.

The book has a lot of material and concepts in which 134 pages cannot do justice to the thought. For more on the book’s ideas, check out http://www.sexliesandreligion.com

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from cre:ate 2.0 Publishing to read and post a review on my site. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html<http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> >  “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Too often there are times when the phrase “ignorance is bliss” is true.

The more you know, the more you realize the things you don’t know so you work hard on knowing those too.

The more you know, the more obligation you feel to do something about it.

The more you know, the more opportunity you have to overload your life with too many things for those who don’t know.

The more you know, the more you realize that the person you thought was awesome could be just as sinful as you and you feel let down.

BUT…

The more you know, the more opportunity you have to reach out to people who are going through the same struggles you’ve experienced.

The more you know, the better chance you have seeing a problem solved.

The more you know, the wiser you can be in approaching differing people and situations.

The more you know, the more you can begin to understand yourself.

The more you know, the more “valuable” you are to yourself and the world.

What other ways is ignorance bliss or not?

The more you know, the more you realize that it’s good sometimes to be in know.