Honour and shame

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• Honour and shame

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Honour

• How others perceive you
• Reputation and identity
• To be esteemed
• A good name
• Upheld in society

Faiscal Rafiq/IRIN
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.
Honour one another above yourselves. (Rom 12 10)
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Shame

• Reproach, disgrace, exposure
• Removing honour
• Public humiliation, insult
• Unworthiness

The Royal Constantine Society
I am against you, declares the LORD Almighty.
I will lift your skirts over your face. I will
show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms
your shame. (Nahum 3 5)
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Why shame and honour?

• Understanding the concepts of shame and honour
  will help us understand the Bible better.

• Understanding the worldview of friends and
  neighbours from other cultural backgrounds will
  enable us to better live out and communicate the
  gospel.

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Honour and shame cultures

• Community and family honour over individual
  morality
• Social status where you sit, how you walk, who
  enters a room first

CrazyFest

• Honour killings for shameful behaviour

Matthew Thistle
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Honour and shame in the Bible The prodigal son

• A young man dishonours his father
• Admitting both his guilt and shame he returns to
  his father
• In compassion, the father bestows honour upon him
  by clothing him, putting a ring on his finger,
  sandals on his feet, and celebrating his return
• God both forgives and honours us when we might
  expect to be left guilty and in shame.

Lk 15 11-32
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Honour and shame in the Bible The vineyard

• A father tells both his sons to work in the
  vineyard
• The first says I will not (shaming his father)
  but later goes. The second says I will go
  (honouring his father) but never turns up.
• Jesus says that the first son did his fathers
  will

Matt 21 28-32
God bestows honour when people turn to him. God
rejects those who inwardly shame him by not doing
his will.
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Honour and shame in the Bible Mary and Joseph

• Joseph discovers his fiancée is pregnant. He does
  not want to put her to shame, and resolves to
  separate quietly.
• An angel had told Mary that she had been chosen
  to give birth to Gods son.

God often chooses the weak, unnoticed and
disgraced to be recognised and upheld (1 Cor 1
27). If God honours us, it matters not whether
the world does.
Matt 1 19, Lk 1 30-35
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Honour and shame in the Bible The cross

• Jesus is publicly accused, spat upon, hit on the
  head, mocked
• He carries his cross through the streets before
  being stripped naked and executed between two
  criminals

God bore our shame, as well as our sins. Jesus
endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb
12 2).
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Beyond honour and shame

• We are fully known and fully loved, despite our
  faults and failings and irrespective of how badly
  others have treated us.

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Beyond honour and shame

• As Christians we should...
• honour others, treating them with more respect
  than they deserve
• find ways of confronting sin which leads to
  repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and
  restoration

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