honor

• incessant clamoring of inescapable self for h.

3:5.138. Is un­selfish­ness—the spirit of self-for­get­ful­ness—de­sir­able? Then must mor­tal man live face to face with the in­ces­sant clam­or­ing of an in­escapable self for recog­ni­tion and honor. Man could not dy­nam­i­cally choose the di­vine life if there were no self-life to for­sake. Man could never lay sav­ing hold on right­eous­ness if there were no po­ten­tial evil to ex­alt and dif­fer­en­ti­ate the good by con­trast.

• futile without an audience to parade before

68:2.10If van­ity be en­larged to cover pride, am­bi­tion, and honor, then we may dis­cern not only how these propen­si­ties con­tribute to the for­ma­tion of hu­man as­so­ci­a­tions, but how they also hold men to­gether, since such emo­tions are fu­tile with­out an au­di­ence to pa­rade be­fore. Soon van­ity as­so­ci­ated with it­self other emo­tions and im­pulses which re­quired a so­cial arena wherein they might ex­hibit and grat­ify them­selves. This group of emo­tions gave ori­gin to the early be­gin­nings of all art, cer­e­mo­nial, and all forms of sportive games and con­tests.

• historically › primitives desired

69:5.74. Po­si­tion—ea­ger­ness to buy so­cial and po­lit­i­cal pres­tige. There early sprang up a com­mer­cial­ized no­bil­ity, ad­mis­sion to which de­pended on the per­for­mance of some spe­cial ser­vice to roy­alty or was granted frankly for the pay­ment of money.

• historically › wealth early became badge of social distinction

69:5.13Ac­cu­mu­la­tions of wealth early be­came the badge of so­cial dis­tinc­tion. In­di­vid­u­als in cer­tain tribes would ac­cu­mu­late prop­erty for years just to cre­ate an im­pres­sion by burn­ing it up on some hol­i­day or by freely dis­tribut­ing it to fel­low tribes­men. This made them great men. Even mod­ern peo­ples revel in the lav­ish dis­tri­bu­tion of Christ­mas gifts, while rich men en­dow great in­sti­tu­tions of phi­lan­thropy and learn­ing. Man’s tech­nique varies, but his dis­po­si­tion re­mains quite un­changed.

• seek only what belongs to you

156:5.19Avoid dis­hon­esty and un­fair­ness in all your ef­forts to preach truth and pro­claim the gospel. Seek no un­earned rec­og­ni­tion and crave no un­de­served sym­pa­thy. Love, freely re­ceive from both di­vine and hu­man sources re­gard­less of your deserts, and love freely in re­turn. But in all other things re­lated to honor and adu­la­tion seek only that which hon­estly be­longs to you.

• historically › Zebedee sons sought

171:0.5When Je­sus heard Sa­lome’s re­quest, he said: “Woman, you know not what you ask.” And then, look­ing straight into the eyes of the two honor-seek­ing apos­tles, he said: “Be­cause I have long known and loved you; be­cause I have even lived in your mother’s house; be­cause An­drew has as­signed you to be with me at all times; there­fore do you per­mit your mother to come to me se­cretly, mak­ing this un­seemly re­quest. But let me ask you: Are you able to drink the cup I am about to drink?” And with­out a mo­ment for thought, James and John an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, we are able.” Said Je­sus: “I am sad­dened that you know not why we go up to Je­ru­sa­lem; I am grieved that you un­der­stand not the na­ture of my king­dom; I am dis­ap­pointed that you bring your mother to make this re­quest of me; but I know you love me in your hearts; there­fore I de­clare that you shall in­deed drink of my cup of bit­ter­ness and share in my hu­mil­i­a­tion, but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give. Such hon­ors are re­served for those who have been des­ig­nated by my Fa­ther.”

• sacredness of personal honor

196:0.7The all-con­sum­ing and in­domitable spir­i­tual faith of Je­sus never be­came fa­nat­i­cal, for it never at­tempted to run away with his well-bal­anced in­tel­lec­tual judg­ments con­cern­ing the pro­por­tional val­ues of prac­ti­cal and com­mon­place so­cial, eco­nomic, and moral life sit­u­a­tions. The Son of Man was a splen­didly uni­fied hu­man per­son­al­ity; he was a per­fectly en­dowed di­vine be­ing; he was also mag­nif­i­cently co-or­di­nated as a com­bined hu­man and di­vine be­ing func­tion­ing on earth as a sin­gle per­son­al­ity. Al­ways did the Mas­ter co-or­di­nate the faith of the soul with the wis­dom-ap­praisals of sea­soned ex­pe­ri­ence. Per­sonal faith, spir­i­tual hope, and moral de­vo­tion were al­ways cor­re­lated in a match­less re­li­gious unity of har­mo­nious as­so­ci­a­tion with the keen re­al­iza­tion of the re­al­ity and sa­cred­ness of all hu­man loy­al­ties—per­sonal honor, fam­ily love, re­li­gious obli­ga­tion, so­cial duty, and eco­nomic ne­ces­sity.