There must be no room for rivalry and personal vanity among you, but you must humbly reckon others better than yourselves. Look to each other's interest and not merely to your own.
Let your bearing towards one another arise out of your life in Christ Jesus. For the divine nature was His from the first; yet He did not think to snatch at equality with God, but made Himself nothing, assuming the nature of a slave. Bearing the human likeness, revealed in human shape, He humbled himself, and in obedience accepted even death-death on a cross.
From Elisabeth Elliot's Discipline: The Glad Surrender
Christianity teaches righteousness, not rights. It emphasizes honor, not equality. A Christian's concern is what is owed to the other, not what is owed to himself. (elliot, 81)
A second reason for confusion in the matter of respect, in addition that over the definition, is the current notion that everyone deserves tit-for-tat equality. This is one of the excesses of democracy, which ought not to be confused with Christianity. The truth is that not everybody has a right to to everything. A child has the right to be taken care of. An adult has not. An adult has the right to vote, get married, be taxed. A child has not. (elliot, 79)
Honor is given. It is not taken (elliot, 79)
Honoring those who are our rightful superiors by virtue of holding positions of authority over us takes the form of obedience. The servant is not greater than his lord, the student than his professor, the child than his parents. In each case, when obedience is offered first to Christ, obedience to the human superior will be rendered much easier. The standard of service ought also to be vastly improved. (elliot, 83)
His was the "right" to be taught, which right, like every other, has its limitations. The right to be a student is not the right to be a friend. If he becomes the professor's friend, that is a privilege. (elliot, 83)
