1 Peter 2:13-17: in context

Peter is writing to Christians who are a suspect minority under the Roman Empire, and he gives them counsel on how to live under authority that is not their own. Submit to the human institutions, he says, to the emperor and the governors, for the Lord's sake, because doing good and living honorably is how you quiet the ignorant suspicions of people who assume the worst about you. But he does not leave it at simple obedience. He adds a careful qualification: live as free people, and yet as servants of God, not using your freedom as a cover for doing wrong.

That is already a fine balance, real freedom that is also glad servanthood to God, freedom from human tyranny that expresses itself as belonging to God. But the calibration gets even sharper in the last verse, four short commands that sort out exactly what is owed to whom. Honor everyone. Love the family of faith. Fear God. Honor the emperor. Read them closely and notice what Peter gives to each. All people get honor, because all bear God's image. The community of believers gets love, something warmer. God gets fear, the deep awe and ultimate allegiance that belong to him alone. And the emperor, who held more earthly might than anyone alive, and who in that world demanded to be worshiped, gets honor, real and genuine, but pointedly not fear. The king is given respect and kept firmly in his place, one rung below God, never confused with him.

The whole thing is an exercise in not collapsing the categories. Fear belongs to God, honor belongs to people and to authority, and the two must never be swapped. Have I let some human power, a government, a boss, a public opinion, take the fear that belongs only to God, or, just as wrongly, withheld the plain honor I owe to people and authorities I happen to dislike?