Respect For Others

As I was reading Ramnath Subramanian's article this morning regarding the topic of "respect," I thought about what my late father told me many years ago. He told me, "Mike, in order to get respect, you must demand respect" — and he followed through with that statement by demanding that I and my two brothers show respect to him, our mother, and any other person in our midst. Any backtalk was absolutely forbidden, and swift retribution would ensue if we engaged in speaking to anyone in a disrespectful manner.

Ram provides us an example of the disrespect we find in our world today: "Last week, hundreds of naked bicyclists took to the streets of London, ostensibly to protest travel by car and oil dependency. The new world may no longer look askance at public indecency, but don't people have an obligation to put the brakes on their narcissistic impulses and appetite for exhibitionism, especially when children are affected by their behavior?"

The answer to Ram's above question is a definite "Yes." Sad to say, our society is becoming more rude and crude with every passing day, with very little decorum at all, as it travels further and further from God and His word as found in the Bible.

We see this happening in Ram's next observation: "Take God and Christianity, for example, which increasingly are under attack in the Western culture. As the community of non-believers grows, it has become fashionable in some progressive quarters of society to dismiss the Bible offhand as a "fairytale."

Question: Was Jesus just a "fairytale" character? Not so, according to historical documentation provided here, here, and here. Is the Bible based on a "fairytale" or on objective truth? (John 17:17).

"Respect" is one of the cornerstones of any civilized society. When we lose respect for one another, for anyone in authority, and for God and His inspired Word (2 Timothy 3:16 KJV), we will soon become like the society the inspired apostle Paul talks about in Romans 1:21-32. Beloved, do we really want to live in that kind of godless society?

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets