Enforce Good Manners/Social Decorum

Driving home: Thou shalt not do those things that are unseemly to thy neighbor. In other words, love will not conduct itself shamelessly. Love does not behave itself unseemly.

Martin quotes Lenski's commentary on 1 Corinthians 13:5, explaining that pride leads to unseemly conduct, while love is forgetful of self and thoughtful toward others, reinforcing the link between love and good manners.

Listen to Lenski's commentary on these two aspects of 1 Corinthians 13. He writes, When pride puffs up, unseemly bearing and conduct naturally follow. Tactlessness forgets its own place and fails to accord to others their proper due. Of respect, honor, or consideration.

14:01 - 14:25 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Thou shalt not do those things that are unseemly to thy neighbor. In other words, love will not conduct itself shamelessly. Love does not behave itself unseemly.

Paul is presented as an example of perfect tact and noble manners, demonstrating how a believer can act appropriately in any social setting, from common people to kings, which is a manifestation of appropriate social decorum.

Love is forgetful of self and thoughtful toward others. Paul himself is a good example. No matter where he might find himself, among friends or foes, before the common people or before rulers and kings, he always knew how to act as became his station and the position into which he was placed. He was sensitive to and expressed.

14:25 - 14:52 Read in full sermon

Driving home: People will say, is that what the gospel produces? Is that what God's word produces? He says the word of God will be blasphemed unless in these practical details there is exemplary behavior.

An analogy of an office worker showing up to a fancy appreciation banquet in jeans and a T-shirt illustrates how inappropriate attire is a disrespectful statement to the host, paralleling how bad manners disrespect others and God.

For example, if there were someone in a local office who was having a special banquet for his office staff and he made it known. That this is going to be a banquet at the Manor there on Route 23, one of the fanciest eating places in this area, and it's being done as an expression of appreciation for their work through the year. What would one of those office staff workers be saying if they showed up at the Manor in jeans and a T-shirt? Well, they'd not only be saying something to the proprietors, they wouldn't be let in for the first place, but they'd be saying something to their boss.

28:41 - 29:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Ban 'gimme' from your house and insist on 'please' and 'thank you' for all requests and receipts.

Martin shares a personal anecdote about teaching his children to use 'please' and 'thank you' by asking 'What's the magic word?' and acting deaf until the polite words were used, demonstrating a practical method for enforcing requesting manners.

Mother, Dad, please, may I have. Doesn't take long. With us, the little term was, what's the magic word? Nothing was given without the magic word.

37:51 - 38:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Insist that sons hold doors for their sisters and other women, teaching them to honor women as the weaker vessel.

Martin recounts instances in the church foyer where women are surprised or even need to be asked to allow him to hold a door for them, illustrating the decline of male-female manners and the need to teach boys to be gentlemen.

He's unlikely to do it for his wife and for other women. How many times in this foyer have I had to say in a kind of tongue in cheek rebuke when with a woman standing two feet from me, she's reached for her coat and go to put it on and I said, please stop. Will you allow me to be a gentleman? Oh, I'm sorry.

47:21 - 47:41 Read in full sermon