Kingdom Mindset: Culture of Honor
A major movement among Christians of all backgrounds today centers around grabbing hold of an emphasis on the Kingdom of God. Take a quick scan through the Gospels and you'll see that the Kingdom (of God, of heaven) is a central feature in the life and mission of Jesus, yet I think many readers will relate with my own experience when I say that, for most of my life, I had heard very little about this idea of “the Kingdom.”
So what is it about the Kingdom that has brought such an impactful shift among believers today? I am taking a few blog posts to highlight some themes that are common to what we might call the Kingdom “mindset” that is energizing and inspiring some of the most effective ministry and evangelistic efforts in our time. This post is the second in the series.
In the first post of this series, I talked about the standard of “on earth as in heaven” as the foundation piece of the Kingdom mindset. Here, I would like to take a look at how that standard applies to our relationships with one another. How do those with a Kingdom mindset view and approach human relationships differently than the rest of the world?
Because Jesus inaugurated the Kingdom of God and made it accessible in the here-and-now, one way to approach this question is to ask what human relationships look like in heaven, what is the culture of heaven? The obvious answer to this is that the culture of heaven is permeated by love, drawing its vitality from the God who is love. But I find that, for all its original depth in Biblical language, the term “love” struggles to convey the true nature of heaven’s culture in a meaningful way today. Love is portrayed in popular culture, on the one hand, as an overly emotional sentimentalism, while theological definitions of love can veer towards a cerebral and unfeeling willing-the-good-of-the-other.
I think this is why the language of “honor” has sparked fresh insight into the richness of Kingdom-centric relationships. I first encountered this language through the teachings of Danny Silk, whose books on this topic, Keep Your Love On and Culture of Honor, are a major influence behind this blog post and are well worth the read. But let’s dive into unpacking just a little bit of this thing called “culture of honor.”
THE CULTURE OF HEAVEN
When we think of heaven, we often think of it only from the angle of what our relationship with God will be like in heaven, how we will see Him face to face and be forever wrapped up in worship and adoration. This is certainly the core and essence of life in heaven. But heaven is not simply a one-on-one relationship with God. Heaven is populated by all the saints and angels, and is truly a civilization in its own right. It is the New Jerusalem prophesied by Ezekiel, the Heavenly Jerusalem described in Revelation. It is from this angle that I want to consider the culture of heaven, that is, the character of human relationships in heaven.
Human relationships in heaven will be marked by being fully known. Each person will be seen as the completed “masterpiece” (Eph 2:10) that God has destined them to be, and the sins and failings of each person’s past will be not be remembered any more than we could track down the rubble of marble Michaelangelo left while carving the Pietà. Each person will be recognized in their inherent dignity, and in the unique way that they embody and display the glory of God.
As such, human relationships in heaven will also be marked by being fully celebrated. Honor will flow freely in heaven. There will be no sense of competition, and the celebration of one person will never be perceived as a threat to another, for honor is not a zero-sum game there, where one person receiving more honor means another must receive less. Instead, honor is multiplicative, for honor given to one redounds to all (1 Cor 12:26).
Honor pervades the culture of heaven because it pervades the very inner life of the Trinity.
“According to the Bible, the Father, the Son, and the spirit glorify one another. The persons within God exalt each other, commune with each other, defer to one another... In constant movements of overture and acceptance, each person envelops and encircles the others... God’s interior life [therefore] overflows with self-giving love for others.” (Cornelius Plantinga)
Amazingly, God invites us to share in this “dance,” this dynamic of mutual glorification. This, in turn, infuses the culture of the community of heaven as its citizens mirror the Trinitarian exchange of honor with each other. [1]
THE CULTURE OF HEAVEN ON EARTH
In Christ, we are already citizens of this heavenly Kingdom and are invited to begin living this culture of honor here and now. We do this by learning to see people the way God sees them, by being eager to praise the good we see in them, by leveraging the favor we have to create opportunities for people to develop into their full potential, and so on. Because the Kingdom is already in us, we have the capacity to embrace the culture of heaven in this life.
But because of the fallen state of this world, there are certain challenges to living a culture of honor that we have to contend with now that we won’t in heaven. So what does honor look like in the midst of the brokenness of this world? What does it look like in the face of misunderstandings, disappointments, offense, and even hostility? Here are a few key concepts to preserving a culture of honor in the midst of relational conflicts.
Honor maintains connection. Choosing honor means fighting to maintain our connection with people, even when they disappoint us. It means that we don’t disengage, that we don’t withdraw from relationship or withhold love. It means that we keep the channels of communication open, seeking to understand more than to be understood, to borrow a line from the Prayer of St. Francis. Honor embraces a covenant mentality towards others, one which says, “I’m not going to give up on you or distance myself from you, no matter what.”
Honor preserves freedom. Choosing honor means respecting each person’s autonomy, their ability to think their own thoughts and make their own decisions. It means that we do not offer ultimatums or seek to control others, but we allow others to remain powerful even in the midst of conflict. Honor means that we assume the best about people, even when we see them at their worst. It believes that when we remove fear or the threat of punishment and instead create an atmosphere of safety, the best in others will usually rise to the surface.
Honor calls out the gold. Choosing honor means that we see people according to their true identity in Christ, not according to their faults and failings, and we treat them accordingly. Honor knows that most people don’t struggle to see the worst in themselves, but instead struggle to see their own worth. Accountability in a culture of honor, therefore, looks less like pointing out people’s sins and more like reminding them of who they are in Christ. Like Jesus with the woman caught in adultery, honor ruthlessly eliminates shame from the atmosphere (“Neither do I condemn you”) while simultaneously empowering people to live by a higher standard (“Go, and sin no more”).
HONOR HAS NO ENEMIES
In his memorable passage about putting on the armor of God, Paul writes, “For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens” (Eph 6:12). A large part of living honor in this world begins with the conviction that no person is my enemy. When I insist on living by honor, I am doing battle with the true enemy of mankind, the “accuser of the brethren” (Rev 12:10), who is bent on dividing, controlling, and diminishing people by any means possible.
We are not powerless in the face of such opposition, but as Danny Silk so eloquently puts it, “Each display of love, no matter how seemingly small, is a powerful act of spiritual warfare that removes anxiety from the environment, replaces it with freedom and safety, and invites each person to bring his or her best self forward in the relationship” (Keep Your Love On).
1. I am indebted to Timothy Keller's sermon "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" for these insights into the inner life of the Trinity.
You can read the first post in this series here: “Kingdom Mindset: On Earth as in Heaven”
You can read the next posts in the series here: “Kingdom Mindset: The Goodness of God” | “Kingdom Mindset: Our Spiritual Authority”
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