Honor is something we take very seriously.
Even when we pretend not to.
We say things like “titles don’t matter” or “I don’t care what other people think,” but those are only half-truths at best. Remove one step of rank, overlook me for recognition, cut me down in public, or associate me with an organization I perceive as “less than,” and the sting is surprisingly acute.
If I’m being honest, I care more than I would like to admit.
Because I want to be thought of as competent. Experienced. Empathetic. I want credit for the things I have accomplished, and acknowledgment for the sacrifices I have made. While I may tell myself that acknowledgment is not important, I find I am still quietly keeping score. And worse, that the score has a substantive impact on my mood.
For all the reasons above, I find Acts 5 so very foreign.
“The apostles went out of the High Council overjoyed becuase they had been given the honor of being dishnored on account of the Name.”
The apostles were “overjoyed” about being openly dishonored. What an upside-down concept.
The apostles had been threatened, beaten, and publicly humiliated. Yet instead of walking away bitter, defensive, or discouraged, they walked away rejoicing. Not despite the dishonor, but exactly because of it.
Maybe this all feels so foreign because I still desperately desire approval from the same audience that rejected Jesus. I want the kingdom absent the cross. Influence without rejection. Respect without sacrifice.
The apostles appeared to understand something I so often forget: if you genuinely represent Christ, friction eventually appears. Not because Christians should seek conflict or act obnoxious, but because allegiance to Jesus eventually cuts against the grain. Because a life genuinely shaped by Jesus eventually collides with the things we build our identities around: status, comfort, self-sufficiency. Even quiet faithfulness can feel threatening when it exposes what we are really living for.
So the apostles were not celebrating suffering for mere suffering’s sake. They were celebrating what the dishonor had revealed: who they truly belonged to.
I’m left wondering whether I have really been representing Jesus if there is never any friction. Or whether I have instead constructed a version of discipleship designed to avoid the very dishonor the apostles considered an honor.