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"Honour all men Honour the king." It is the same word in both cases. Honour is the thing due to king and to man. But in the Greek the tense is different; honour all men as various occasions arise for it; but in the other three cases the object and the occasion are known; give present love and fear and honour to a visible brotherhood, and a present God, and a known ruler. It is as though the apostle prefaced the special precepts with this more general one. Honour all men everywhere; nothing is to annul this, the charter of the whole redeemed race; but specially love the Christian brotherhood, and fear the God so visibly present among them, and honour the appointed king.

1. Man is honourable among the creatures of God for his knowledge and power of thought. By the light of God that is in him, man sees God in the world of matter and life. The finger point of the most wise Artificer is upon every part.

2. But that which is at once the glory and the shame of man, is his power to choose, his will.

3. And this power of action is also a power of obedience to the law of God.

4. And, lastly, man is immortal. "God is not the God of the dead but of the living." We are immortal, for the hope of a future life, awakened and fostered by our Lord, cannot be meant to end in a delusion. Honour all men, then; honour those to whom God has given the discerning soul, and the deciding will, and the guiding conscience, and the inheritance of eternal life.

(Abp. Thomson.)

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KJV: Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

WEB: Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.