What does dignity mean to you? I suggest there is a grave misunderstanding of dignity. In fact, I suggest that some, or perhaps many, substitute the definition of indignity for dignity. Let’s first define both.

Dignity – bearing, conduct, self-respect, token of respect, and appreciation for the gravity of the situation.

Indignity – injury to a person’s dignity, contemptuous treatment, humiliating affront, and insult.

Have you ever heard someone say, “I will not dignify their question with an answer”? Does that sound like dignity or indignity? I believe it is indignity. That type of response is contemptuous, may be humiliating, or be meant as an insult. There is nothing dignified about it.

The Apostle Paul gives his protégé, young Timothy, encouragement to life a quiet, peaceable, godly, and dignified life. His encouragement includes instruction on how to live that kind of life. First, he urges Timothy to make supplications, pray for, intercede, and give thanks for everyone. Paul does not lightly use the word everyone. He means every person Timothy knows or encounters.

Paul specifically includes kings and those in high positions. When was the last time you prayed for or interceded or gave thanks for leaders at your work, in your community, your state, or national leaders? How quiet, peaceable, godly, and dignified is your life? Tough questions. Ones that all of us should wrestle with.

I hear people saying they hate their leaders, referencing them at various levels. That is not following the guidance of Paul nor the example of Jesus. Rather than railing against them, we are to pray for them. Personally, I have prayed for Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Abubakar Shekau (former leader of Boko Haram), and Amir Huhammad Sa’id Abdal Rahman Al-Mawla (former leader of ISIS). Was it easy? No! But it is following Paul’s instruction to young Timothy and with the understanding that Jesus loves everyone, even if they do not love Him.

If we were to spend the amount of time praying that we typically spend deriding someone, we just might see God work in their lives and change them. If we were to pray specifically that God soften their hearts, make them receptive to the message of Jesus, and bring them into His church, we just might see things begin to change in this world.

I know, we are all skeptics. We have been hardened by bad experiences. We have been corrupted by skewed political messages. Yet we can change our attitude. Maybe we need to first pray that God soften our own hearts, then we can pray for those who reject God’s will. It is only through our submission to God and our willingness to love as radically as Jesus that we will change this world. But it won’t be us changing it. It will be God.

 

1 Timothy 2:1-2 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.