It probably goes without saying that one Biblical term whose denotative (and connotative) emphasis gets overlooked within modern Christendom is the three-million dollar term: Honor.
Among the professing pastorate, we are more likely to hear terms such as: prayer circles, potluck dinners, and partnering to win the lost. But within the rubric of such "easy-evangelism" terminology lies the conspicuous absence of the matter and reality of honor, and of its attendant implications regarding all other Christian codes of conduct and outreach.
How many self-proclaimed Christian pastors have the gumption to rebuke one another when matters of honor, or the lack thereof, become apparent amidst internecine church squabbles? I am not implying the re-implementation of an 18th-Century duel or sword-fight; but the question lies dormant in the mind of the post-modern New Ager: "Do the Christians I know behave any more honorably that my Unitarian Universalist, or Wiccan acquaintances?"
In other words, an old Christian friend of mine once shared with me, early in my Christian walk, the oft-referred to idea of the "Christian Ghetto." This concept, properly codified, is the idea that once a Christian church, evangelist, or family begins to think that God is blessing their life and ministry, a sense of complacency and capitulation to social ease often sets into the lifestyle of the given person or group of "believers" in question.
When the Christian Ghetto principle begins to set into the cartilege and muscle tissue of a given body of professing believers, one of the first concerns that often gets thrown into the weekly refuse heap is that of honor. Rather than judging one another through a proper lens of grace and truth, people begin to decompensate back to gradeschool observances of outward observations and commonplace grievances, as human sin tendencies begin to rear their expected heads.
When new social strains and embarrassments hit a church that exists and subsists in the Christian Ghetto, honor gets booted out the back door- literally. No longer does the congregation pray for discernment, much less exercise available discernment, when various peripheral members or visitors in the church play their part in the Divine Comedy and shake up the comfort factor of the Ghetto. Rather than recognizing that the Sovereign Lord is never scandalized by ordinary sin and opting to dispense grace to the awkward sinner in its midst, the Ghetto instead hides (or masks) its own culpability in the same sin matter and tries to sweep the social tension under the proverbial rug in the inner sanctuary of God's temple.
But is God ever shocked, surprised, or taken aback by even the most wanton of publically shameful human infractions? (I hesitate to remind you of Hester Prynne.) I would suggest we read Psalm 2 to remember that Jehovah God is scandalized by one thing, and one thing only: the misuse of His Name, Glory, Honor, or Gospel by counter-Christos false teachers and prophets.
The Lord is not sitting on HIs Throne, arms and legs akimbo, biting His metaphorical fingernails, panicking, as it were, over each and every U.S. Senator's "moral failures." It may surprise you to hear me say that the Lord is not ultimately dismayed (although He is undeniably and rightfully grieved) by various pastors' sexual peccadillos. (Though I am in no way diminishing the grievous reality that such sins produce.) What absolutely, unequivocally infuriates the Sovereign Lord is when men and women take His Word, His Glory, and His Honor, and reduce or misuse it as a means to suit the end of their own vain ambitions and useless self-promotion.
That, in a nutshell, is manifest Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which can never be forgiven, in this age, or the next. If you are currently existing or subsisting in the Christian Ghetto, make sure you run for the hills of Mount Zion, because the Jealousy of the Lord can most certifiably burn your pretenses to ashes in but a moment.
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