Every household has its unspoken ranking. It shows up in who gets the big room with the bathroom attached, who sits nearest the fan, whose car goes under the carport and whose sits in the sun, who gets the first plate on Sunday and who eats standing up in the kitchen after everyone else has finished. Most families never discuss these things. They simply settle, over time, into a pattern.
Paul had something to say about that pattern. “Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves” (Romans 12:10, NIV). Some translations put the second half as a kind of competition: outdo one another in showing honour. It is an instruction for a church family, but churches in Paul’s day met in homes. The first place believers practised it was around a table, under a roof, among people who had to share space.
The quiet hierarchy of a house
Think of a house where three generations live together. The parents who own it have the main bedroom, which seems fair. Grandmother, who moved in after her husband died, has the small room by the kitchen. The adult daughter who pays a share of the bills has a room at the back where the zinc gets hot. And the woman who comes in three days a week to help with cleaning and cooking has nowhere to sit down at all.
Nobody in that house is cruel. But if you asked each person who in the household is honoured, you might get different answers. Honour, in a home, is not mainly about words. It is written into the layout, the routines and the small daily choices about comfort.
What honour looks like in bricks and routines
Honouring others above ourselves can be surprisingly practical when it comes to shared space:
- The room that suits the need. An elderly parent with bad knees may need the ground-floor room nearest the bathroom far more than the owners need it. A new mother may need the quietest room for a season.
- A place to rest for those who work in the house. Anyone who helps with cleaning, childcare or gardening deserves a chair, a cool drink, a proper lunch break and a bathroom they are welcome to use.
- Privacy for the ones with least of it. Teenagers and adult children living at home need a door they can close and a knock before it opens.
- Serving the plate in a different order. Some families have long served the head of the house first. There is nothing wrong with respect for elders, but occasionally letting the one who cooked sit down first says something.
- Asking before deciding. Renovations, new furniture and changes to the yard affect everyone. Honour asks opinions even from those who are not paying.
Why this goes against the grain
Our instincts run the other way. The person who paid for the house feels entitled to the best of it, and in one sense that is understandable. But the gospel has a way of turning our sense of entitlement upside down. Paul tells the Philippians to value others above themselves, and then points to Christ, who “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant” (Philippians 2:7, NKJV). The Son of God took the lowest place. Jesus washed feet, which in a first-century home was the job of the lowest servant.
A household shaped by that example will look a little odd. The owner might take the smaller room so a parent can have the one with a view. A husband might give up the carport to his wife because she leaves at five in the morning. A family might build a proper room with a window for a live-in relative rather than a converted storeroom.
Honour is not the same as being a doormat
It is worth adding a caution. Romans 12:10 is addressed to everyone in the household, not only to the most willing person in it. If one member is always giving way, always taking the hot room, always eating last, while others simply accept it, that is not mutual honour. It is imbalance. The command is for one another. Honour flows in all directions or it becomes something else.
It also does not mean tolerating harm. Honouring someone never requires staying silent about mistreatment, and no one should feel that humility means accepting abuse in their home. If that is your situation, please reach out to someone you trust, your pastor, or local support services.
A small audit
Walk through your house this week and look at it as though you were the least powerful person living or working in it. Where would you sleep? Where would you sit? Whose preferences shaped this room? Whose needs are not visible anywhere?
Then pick one thing to change. Not a grand gesture, just a clear one: a chair on the back step for the helper, the bigger fan moved to grandmother’s room, a family meeting before the next renovation. Love that is only spoken is easy to doubt. Love that has moved the furniture is hard to miss.
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