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Duty of Man Elder Philip N. Conley

"Honour the king." One might wonder why this commandment is included as it
would seem to be understood in the first command in the verse of "Honour all men."
Though honouring the king is a subset but included in honouring all men, the Bible
will from time to time emphasize something for our benefit. As fallen, broken crea-

tures, we need reminding about different things and some things more than others. We
could be told to honour all men, but by emphasizing the king, Scripture gives us
reason to think that honouring the king might be more difficult from time to time than

the general command. Hence, the emphasis. Consider that bad rulers have plagued
human history, and will likely continue to do in the future. It would be far easier to
help someone in need that you had never seen act poorly than it would be to honour
an earthly ruler or magistrate whose sins had been evident for all to see. We have a
tendency to hold and harbor ill feelings to those that we feel personally wronged by.

Ruling over people is difficult in this way even for those that try to rule well. Your
shortcomings are more manifest than others, making you the repeated target of
grudges, abuse, etc.

When considering Paul's openings to his epistles, there is a slight variation between
"church epistles" and "minister epistles." In all the church epistles, Paul includes
"grace and peace be unto you" within the opening greeting. In the minister epistles,
he says, "grace, mercy, and peace be unto you" as Paul well understood that the min-

ister needed a dose of mercy as he tried to lead and guide the sheep of God's heritage.
In that sense by watching over their souls (Hebrews 13:17), Paul knew that they
would come under fire and criticism. Hence, he begged mercy for them as well as

grace and peace. Whether someone is under the rule of a wicked or righteous magis-
trate, honour is still the command. In the last few years, I have heard upset but mis-
guided people say comments like "he is not my president" and "I'll pray for the office
but not the man." Whether someone likes their rulers or not, they are still the rulers,
and here we are commanded to honour the king not the kingship (man not just the

office). Scripture may emphasize this command for the office's sake, but the man is
to be prayed for.

Duty of Man concludes