Two millennia ago, Paul visited Athens and found that its citizens and visitors “would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new” (Acts 17:21). For Paul, this was an opportunity to share his truly good news. But what are we to make of today’s constant rush of information, with far more news, arriving from far more places, than previous generations encountered?

“God keeps an infinite number of balls in the air, but most of us can handle just one or two.”

In 1985, when Neil Postman wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death, the threat was that we would live frivolous lives and die laughing. Postman died in 2003, when 24/7 cable news channels were elbowing past the previous era of game shows and sitcoms. Since then, the torrent — augmented by Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook — has become a flood. Postman’s concern about escapism is still important, but here’s a question for the present: Will we die crying, or at least anxious?

News Through Psalms

One proposed solution is that we not pay attention to news. Maybe that way we can avoid the world-weariness evident in this April report on the Ozy news site: “Another day, another horror. A gunman shot eight people dead at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis late Thursday night before killing himself, the latest mass shooting to strike America.”

Just “another day, another horror”? Thankfully, the Bible offers a better approach to the constant stream of bad news coming at us today. Four psalms in particular have helped me wade into the brokenness of the news without drowning.

1. Don’t occupy yourself with news.

I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother. (Psalm 131:1–2)

The “great and marvelous” things certainly include theological realities, but we can also apply those phrases to the news. The Bible does not tell us to avoid big news from some other part of the country or world. It tells us not to be “occupied” with it.

We can read the headlines without spending time dwelling on the details of incidents over which we have no control. God keeps an infinite number of balls in the air, but most of us can handle just one or two. We need to concentrate on what we must juggle, and not what will cause us to drop our specific responsibilities.

2. Realize where your only hope lies.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. (Psalm 73:24–25)

Direction in this life, the hope and expectation of eternal life, and the conclusion: What other choice do we have? When sensational news makes it hard to be calm and quiet, it’s time to read the Bible and take comfort in God’s guidance, God’s promise, God’s uniqueness.

3. Keep up with God’s news above man’s.

How great are your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep! The stupid man cannot know; the fool cannot understand this: that though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever. (Psalm 92:5–7)

This teaching runs against contemporary wisdom. Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg became prominent for suggesting that “autonomous thinking” is the seventh and highest stage of human intellectual development. That’s making ourselves into God.

The highest stage is actually dependent thinking that recognizes our reliance on God. Long ago, Augustine said, “If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.” Today we might say that if we’re more desperate to keep up with the news than to keep up with the Bible, it’s not the gospel we trust, but our Facebook feed.

4. Observe the testimony of depravity.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. (Psalm 19:1–2)

In 2021, our 24/7 news services pour out speech but do not glorify God — and yet, we also learn something from news that shows the sinfulness of man. The Bible teaches that when man turns away from God, he acts like a beast, and that beastliness will show itself sometimes in awful crimes. We do not want to dwell on them, but if we ignore them, we’re ignoring evidence for the understanding of man’s sinfulness that is essential to Christianity — for if man without God is not beastly, then Christ’s sacrifice for us was unnecessary.

“Take comfort in God’s guidance, God’s promise, God’s uniqueness.”

Keeping these verses in mind can help us be conscious of the news but not burdened by amoral journalism that emphasizes all the sound and fury in the world and presents people’s lives as tales told by idiots, signifying nothing. The Bible is often sensational, as it wakes up the sleeping and reminds us of the nature of God and man. But amoral journalism is sensationalism that does not point us to God.

Comfort in Life and Death

We are little hobbits in this great big world, but we have a great opportunity to glorify God and enjoy him immediately. As John Piper notes, “Every joy that does not have God as its central gladness is a hollow joy and in the end will burst like a bubble.” In Christ, we can have great joy by discovering more of him in all things, however dark, and honoring him above all things, however great.

Most nights before we go to sleep, my wife or I say to each other the first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism. It has a way of grounding us in realities far above the daily news cycle, and even far above the sorrows that sometimes strike our own lives. The question asks us for our only comfort in life and death. Here’s the answer:

That I am not my own but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with his precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins. He delivered me from all the power of the devil, and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head, yea, that all things must work together for my salvation, wherefore by his Holy Spirit he assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

That sensational promise summarizes brilliantly what the Bible teaches. We need to be less independent and more dependent on God, who has saved us. “Belong” means belong, “fully satisfied” means fully, “all the power of the devil” means all the power, “all things” working for our salvation means all things.

If we believe these promises and keep reminding ourselves of them, we can hear the news without being occupied by it. We can remember where our only hope lies. We can care more about God’s news than man’s. And we can look at depravity without being swallowed by it. In other words, we can stand upright in the Information Age.

Audio Transcript

I love and respect my own parents a lot. But not everyone is blessed with parents like mine. And so we have several related questions in the inbox from adults who are trying to figure out how to honor their parents. For many, this becomes more and more perplexing. As we grow into adulthood, we see our parents’ faults more clearly. And in the late-teen transition to adulthood, parental authority changes; it lessens. The relationship changes. It all leads to various questions, like this one: Can we honor our parents if we don’t respect them? The question was put in particularly clear and brief terms by one listener to the podcast, an anonymous twentysomething listener. “Pastor John, my question is rather simple: How can I honor my parents when I don’t respect them? Or does honoring them assume that you do respect them?” Pastor John, what would you say?

Yes, I don’t think there is a great difference between the terms honor and respect. Respect, I think, refers most often to our inner assessment of someone’s character or achievement, while honor more often refers to our various demonstrations toward them in words or behaviors that express our respect.

So, I think the real question is this: How do we honor or respect parents who, without any repentance, act in dishonorable and blameworthy ways? That’s the question. This is a very crucial question, not only because every Christian has to come to terms with the biblical command of Jesus in Matthew 19:19 to “honor your father and mother” — even though thousands of people have had parents who consistently acted in dishonorable and blameworthy ways — but it’s also a crucial question because the same issue faces all of us in regard to all people, because 1 Peter 2:17 says, “Honor everyone” — not just “honor your parents” but “honor all people” — “Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” And there are horrible people in the world who have done despicable things all their lives and have died viciously hating people and rejecting God and seemingly having nothing honorable about them.

Seven Grounds for Honor

Now, what I have found to be most helpful in thinking through this question about how to honor the dishonorable is to discover in the New Testament that there are at least seven overlapping warrants or reasons or grounds for honoring someone. And these different reasons or grounds for honoring people regularly call for different ways of honoring people. If we take all these into account, some of them will apply to honoring parents who have acted in disreputable or criminal ways — and we’re not going to twist any language to make that work. So, here they are — here are the seven overlapping warrants for honoring someone in the New Testament.

1. Image of God

First, there is honor that is owing to human beings simply because they are created in the image of God, and should be treated differently than the animals. For example:

With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. (James 3:9–10)

“The sheer existence of a human being in the image of God should call forth from us a kind of honor.”

In other words, the sheer existence of a human being in the image of God, the likeness of God, should call forth from us a kind of honor. So, when my students used to ask me, “How do you honor a child molester, a rapist, a murderer, a leader of a genocide?” one answer that I gave was “You don’t shoot them like a stray ox that gored your neighbor” (Exodus 21:28–32). You give them a trial by jury, just because they are human and not animals. That’s a form of honor, even if the trial is followed by execution.

2. Natural Relationships

There is honor that is simply owing to natural relations as God has established them. And here I’m thinking about “honor your father and mother,” because it is a natural relation that God has established, and gains its honorableness from his ordering of things — not just from the quality of the parents. Or you could add to that the honor that is due to age. Leviticus 19:32: “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.”

3. God-Ordained Authority

There is the honor that comes with God-ordained authority. Now, that overlaps with the second point, but this one is not rooted in nature the way that one was. In the secular sphere, Peter says, “Honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2:17). In church, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:12, “Respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord.” In other words, there is a God-appointed authority in the world and a God-appointed authority in the church, and there is a kind of honor that we should show just by virtue of the roles of authority that God himself has appointed.

4. Valuable Labor

There is the honor that people should get because of the worth of their work. In 1 Thessalonians 5:13, Paul goes on to say that, in the church, we should “esteem [our leaders] very highly in love because of their work.” In other words, the work itself is valuable and worthy of our respect.

5. Servanthood

It’s interesting that Paul mingles love with honor there in 1 Thessalonians toward the church leaders who do their work well. Here’s verse 13 again: “Esteem [your leaders] very highly in love because of their work.” In other words, there is a kind of respect or an esteem or an honor that is drawn out of us by our love for those who serve us, not just from the quality of their work.

6. Weakness

There is an honor that should be drawn out toward weakness. Peter mentions this in the relationship between husbands and wives in 1 Peter 3:7: “Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel.” In other words, in Christ, the response toward weakness is not exploitation or mockery or abuse, but honor.

7. Christlike Grace

This may be the most important with regard to what is distinctly Christian. There’s a kind of honor that is freely bestowed without reference to any quality or position or reputation or virtue or rank or demerit in the person honored. In other words, there is a way of honoring that, as it were, doesn’t respond to honorableness but bestows it. It treats a person as though honorable, as though worthy of our service, because we give it to them.

Paul roots this way of honoring people in the very mind of Christ, and in his sacrificial incarnation and sacrifice on the cross.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. . . . Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant. (Philippians 2:3, 5–7)

“There is a way of honoring that, as it were, doesn’t respond to honorableness but bestows it.”

So, there is a kind of honoring that we freely and graciously bestow on the undeserving. We treat them better than they deserve. We assume the position toward them of servants. And thus, in a way, we exalt them as though they were worthy to be served, when, in fact, they’re not worthy to be served. And thus, we bestow a kind of free honor upon them, which is called grace, the way Christ did to us, the way his sacrifice pours out onto us — honor as though we were honorable when we’re not.

To Whom Honor Is Owed

None of those seven reasons for honoring people, and none of those ways of honoring people, commits us to the hypocrisy of thinking others are honorable when they are dishonorable or praiseworthy when they are blameworthy. The Bible does not ask us to live a lie.

So in summary,

some acts of honoring others are owing to the image of God,
some to natural human relations that God has appointed,
some to authority structures that God has put in place,
some to the worth of the work that others do,
some to the relationship of love that we have,
some to a person’s weakness, and
some is absolutely free, in order to display the freedom of the grace of God to others.

And among those seven, I would say at least four, and possibly as many as six, apply to parents who, at one level, have lived in dishonorable ways. And I’ll let you think through which of those apply to your situation.