In the first century, honor and love were unrelated concepts that in many ways worked against each other. Rather than crave love, the various ethnic and religious groups that constituted first-century society regarded “honor and dishonor as their primary axis of value” (DeSilva 2000, 25). Although each group differed somewhat in what they considered honorable behavior or character, honor included not only the notion of self-respect, but also a striving for recognition, prestige, acclaim, and avoidance of shame.
In the dominant Greco-Roman culture, attaining such prestige required participation in a highly competitive social environment. Honor might be attained by embarrassing rivals; whether through winning a contest of wills or wits; in outdoing others in demonstrations of courage or generosity; and by demanding retribution for any slight, real or imagined. Although women had honor, seeking it was largely a masculine enterprise. The imperative that each man had to strive to increase the honor of his own family made him suspicious of members of all other families, including his own wife. Although Roman men were expected to demonstrate their virility on all possible occasions and partners, any blemish on a woman’s chastity was an occasion of shame. Even among the Jews, whose definition of honor ran less to libertinism and more to rigorous observance of the law, a daughter, sister, or wife was regarded as a potential threat to a man’s honor.
Love versus Honor in the Ministry of Jesus Although there are some positive references to honor in the New Testament, much of Jesus’ teachings can be read as a refutation of the oppositional honor/shame code. Instead, Jesus proclaimed love as the compelling motive of human existence, all the while reminding the elite among his Jewish audience that it should be theirs as well:
And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40)
Similarly, Jesus’ advice to “not resist one who is evil” (Matthew 5:39-41) can be understood as a refusal to participate in the competition for status. The examples of evil he gives—being slapped on the cheek, sued for your coat, or forced to walk with someone for a mile—do not threaten real harm, but were instead understood to be offenses against personal honor. Jesus’ followers were to deny the reality of the insult by offering the offender the other cheek, their cloak, or walking the extra mile: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’” (Matthew 5:43-44).
Honor versus Love in Paul Paul of Tarsus echoes Jesus in refuting the honor/shame system in favor of love. In his famous “love” passage, he tells his readers that eloquence—a highly esteemed attribute in Greco-Roman culture—is worth nothing if the speaker has no love. Further, love, unlike one seeking honor by shaming others, “is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-5).
Perhaps the most remarkable—and most misunderstood—of Paul’s substitution of love for honor is found in his discussion of marriage (Ephesians 5: 20-33). This discussion is presented in the context of a Roman practice called patronage, and directly related to the honor/shame system. In patronage, powerful men and sometimes women provided access to land, money, or business connections to those unable to attain them on their own. The beneficiaries of such aid were expected to make known the generosity of their patron, thus contributing to his honor. In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul explicitly incorporated and transformed these notions of benefaction into a Christian context—God, the ultimate patron, provides everything, including life itself, to the human race through the mediation of his Son. Thus Christians were obliged to follow Jesus’ example, both because Jesus modeled the correct behavior, and because failing to show gratitude would bring shame upon their Patron.
Paul begins by praying that “Christians be made mindful of the magnificence of God’s generosity” (DeSilva 2000, 155). The verses immediately preceding the marriage passage demonstrate how this gratitude should be reflected in the love that Christians showed each other:
. . . and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us . . . always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. Be subject to one another out of reverence [respect] for Christ. (Ephesians 4:32-5:2, 20-21)
Directing Christians to “subject themselves to one another,” Paul asked them to opt out of the common struggle for honor, prestige, control, and wealth. He wrote that they are to do this “in reverence [also translated awe or respect] of Christ,” because this is what Jesus himself did, taking on the role of a servant and submitting to a shameful death for the sake of his followers.
Paul goes on to instruct Christian husbands to acknowledge God’s patronage by loving— the word for love used here is agape or compassionate love, rather than erotic or romantic love—their wives, “as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up on behalf of her” (Ephesians 5:25):
. . . husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own body, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. (Ephesians 5:28-31)
The honor/shame code expected men to be dominant, “macho,” and to command the obedience of their households. Roman law demanded that an adult’s loyalty always lie first with his family of origin. “Submitting” himself, “nourishing,” “cherishing,” caring for his wife as he did for himself, and giving primary allegiance not to his parents but to his wife demanded that a man experience a radical change of attitude, not only toward love and marriage, but in ideas about masculinity and respectable behavior themselves.
Paul concludes this statement with, “let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” “Respect” here is the same word that was translated “reverence” in verse 21, and used by Paul to refer to the proper response to Jesus’ sacrifice. Husbands were to give up the struggle for honor regarding their wives—and in Ephesians 6:1-9, regarding their children and slaves as well—out of respect for and in imitation of Jesus. For a powerful man to turn down the privilege to which he was entitled was shameful, even dangerous. Such shame would immediately reflect on the man’s wife. Thus the directive that a wife respect her husband is the counterpart to a man’s caring concern for his wife, one that acknowledges and shares in the sacrifice that men made in the substitution of love for honor.
