“Clear and Encouraging”
In this new book in the Love Your Church series, Adam Ramsey explores what honor looks like in different contexts, and why it is important for church members and leaders to honor each other and build one another up in love. He acknowledges how leaders have abused the concept of honor, like by demanding unthinking loyalty from church members or treating their interns like personal servants, but he defends the concept of honor as valuable and important for the Christian life, regardless of how people have misused it.
He writes about how churches should honor God above all, addresses the importance of being humble and excelling in care for one another, and writes about how the church can provide an honorable witness to the world. He then writes about ways that leaders should honor the people they shepherd, and explores how churches can rightly honor good leaders. This final chapter communicates how important it is for church members to respect their leaders as individual people, rather than treating them like consumable resources, and Ramsey encourages readers to pray for their leaders and to deal with conflict appropriately, instead of spreading rumors or making unfair accusations. I also appreciated the point he made about respecting the pastor's wife and other family members, instead of treating them like additional, unpaid staff.
This is a solid resource that covers core concepts about honoring and caring for people in the context of the local church. This book is pretty basic, but it expresses important themes in an accessible manner, and Ramsey consistently points the reader to Scripture while also providing contemporary examples for how people can live out these teachings. This would be especially helpful for new believers, and for churches that are studying the basics of Christian community.
Note: I received a free copy from the publisher, and am voluntarily leaving an honest review.
