“Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.’ And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.’
“Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel your brother?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the LORD said, ‘What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.’” [1]
Christ the Lord has taught all who follow Him, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny” [MATTHEW 5:21-26].
Despite what the Master has taught concerning this speech that is identified as murderous and as sinful, I must wonder if we Christians have accepted the message. Jesus warned that speaking ill of a brother invites divine scrutiny—scrutiny that imperils the one who speaks against a fellow believer. Yet, far more often that I care to remember, parishioners who sat under the preaching of the Word felt comfortable in speaking ill of fellow believers, even slandering their brothers or sisters, and seeming to want to believe the worst concerning them. We import the attitudes of the world into our relationships among the brotherhood of believers; and our interactions with one another are as likely to reflect this dying world as they are to serve as a harbinger of heaven.
I do not say that we Christians are guilty of killing one another, but I do say that if our speech is any indication, we are capable of killing our brothers and our sisters. Our lack of compassion for our fellow believers may indicate a far more serious deficit in our lives than we know. When we have no concern for the welfare of those who share the Faith, when we can easily speak harshly against them, should we not be concerned?
Let me remind you of a startling picture of the vicious speech that destroys another by pointing to the words of one of the writers of the Proverbs.
“There are those whose teeth are swords,
whose fangs are knives,
to devour the poor from off the earth,
the needy from among mankind.”
[PROVERBS 30:14]
Agur’s words are graphic; any of us who have been on the receiving end of vile castigation will readily understand the veracity of what he has written. Slander, libel, defamation, vicious insults destroy the soul as surely as knives destroy the body. Tragically, such verbal assaults against the soul are not the sole purview of the lost; often it is professed saints of the Living God who fill their mouths with curses and vile vituperation; and the harm is even more apparent when the slander is against the innocent. Christians must never fall into the trap of destroying their fellow believers with the tongue, for to do so is fratricide of the vilest sort.
PREFACE TO THE STUDY — All sin is to be judged at the last. However, some sins are so heinous that God says they “cry out to heaven.” Such sins invite immediate judgement because they are so disturbing to the Living God. The sins of which I now speak are awful sins precisely because they attack central features of creation itself.
Interestingly enough, the Bible does not record a vast number of sins that are said to “cry out to Heaven,” but those sins that do cry out to Heaven should not be tolerated among the faithful—ever. And it is precisely because the faithful are ignorant of the impact these sins have on others that they are so damning. To permit these sins to remain unchecked in the life of a believer is to deny the image of God, the Father of all believers.
In order to grasp the underlying condition that is damaged so severely by those who profess the Faith of Christ the Lord, consider what is revealed concerning the love of God. Each of us is no doubt thoroughly acquainted with what is arguably the best-known verse in all of Scripture. I am referring to JOHN 3:16, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” This verse affirms the character of God.
In later years, John would remind Christians as they read his letters, which are included in the General Epistles, “God is love” [1 JOHN 4:8b]. The import of this affirmation of the character of God to the life of the believer is accented when John writes, “We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” [1 JOHN 4:16].
The Apostle Paul makes a practical application of understanding this truth and permitting it to reign in the life of the believer when he writes the saints in Corinth, “Rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you” [2 CORINTHIANS 13:11]. When the love of God reigns within the assembly, joy marks the life of each member of the Body. The saints seek to restore those who are injured or fallen, they comfort one another, there is a spirit of unity evident in their lives, and peace reigns over the meetings of the church. When this condition prevails, the Lord will be with the congregation and in their midst.
There can be no doubt that the need for practical application of the truth that God is love underlies the command issued to believers as revealed in Peter’s First Epistle, “Love the brotherhood” [1 PETER 2:17b]. Apparently, the need to love one another was pronounced since the Apostle to the Jews wrote as he began drawing that letter to a close, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” [1 PETER 4:8-11]. Loving one another is hard work, and such love was recognized as hard, which necessitated Peter writing this command.
Nevertheless, the love of Christ is expected to prevail among the saints. This love that flows from Christ and through His redeemed people is meant to reign supreme in the believer’s life; the love of Christ must be “above all.” What seems often to be forgotten is that love is not an emotion, not a feeling; love is not passive—it is active. The reason it is easy for have forgotten God’s love is because we are inundated with propaganda!
Almost unconsciously we adopt the language of this dying world and speak of how we feel. Whether or not I feel loving toward you as a fellow follower of the Saviour is immaterial—I am commanded to love my fellow Christians. And that love is to be earnest! Peter writes, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart” [1 PETER 1:22]. And the motive for such love is the transformation each of us received when we were redeemed. Peter says Christians “have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” [1 PETER 1:23].
How will you know whether someone loves you if they never serve your needs in a spirit of humility? It is not in demanding that others acquiesce to your needs that love is revealed. Love is revealed through serving others in a spirit of humility. That this is the case becomes evident from Peter’s words. If we love a person, we will show hospitality without grumbling. Whatever gift we have received, we use that gift to serve others, thus revealing the love of God. Above all else, we make every effort to ensure that God is glorified through allowing the love of Christ to shine through our lives to build others, to encourage others, and to comfort others. If the love of God prevails in our lives, we will be deeply concerned for our fellow believers, our brothers in the Faith.
I say the foregoing to warn of a dreadful malady insinuating itself into the life of professed people of God. We appear to have come to a day in which the assembly of the faithful is viewed as an organisation, an entity we join because that is our choice. Rather than a living organism into which we are placed by the will of the Spirit of God, we imagine the congregation of the faithful to be just another organization created by people themselves. Christ’s Holy Bride is just another organization, no different from any other service organization in our world. This understanding has come about because we have placed ourselves at the centre of our world; thus there is no room for the Lord God to reign over us. We have room only for our own desires! I grew up hearing public service announcements on radio and on television urging Americans, “Attend the Church of your Choice!” The seeds of our own destruction were being sown in that seemingly innocuous admonition. We were being taught that the church is just like any service club.
When that message was accepted and embraced, the Faith of Christ the Lord was divorced from the Bride of Christ, the people whom He purchased with His own blood. The church that abided by that motto did not differ from the Lions, the Moose, the Royal Purple, or any of a score of other service clubs, each vying for a space in the public square. The church we chose could serve as a distraction for so long as we desired, but we knew that we could quit whenever we were offended or whenever we disagreed with the brothers. After all, the Saviour warned, “Offences will certainly come” [LUKE 17:1a]. If you haven’t been offended by one of the brothers or sisters yet, just wait. It is not that anyone wants to be a temptation; but because of our brokenness, because of our fallen condition, it is inevitable that each of us will at some point cause others to stumble! How you respond when you are offended by a fellow saints reveals more about you than it does about the one who has offended you.
We who occupy the sacred desk have too often failed to teach those who share our worship of their responsibilities as followers of the Risen Son of God. We have fallen into the trap of calling people to faith, assuring them of the rich benefits that accrue to those who are born from above. And to be sure, the benefits of salvation are great! However, we emphasized the immediate benefits while ignoring the response of the world to the presence of those who follow the Saviour.
So, we spoke of peace and joy, neglecting to caution that the world would stand opposed to us. We spoke of rich blessing, though we did not want to speak of the vile calumny and the reproach that would be heaped on us because we are Christians. Without thinking of the consequences of our message, we preachers reduced the church of the Living God to a kind of service club. We would encourage our members to provide a few services in the community and make certain they attended our services and that would suffice to please God.
One major deficit of church life that arose as result of this novel understanding of the Faith was that we brought into the church a concept of the individual at the centre of the Faith. Because we could join the church of our choice, and because we could quit whenever we wished, we felt no particular kinship with our fellow saints. Church was reduced to a membership rather than a living entity into which we were united by the Spirit of Christ working in each of us. We fell into the process common in the world that allowed us to think that we could harbour irritation, or even hold anger, toward those fellow Christians who didn’t please us. Though we sang about the Family of God, we didn’t practise family life among the faithful. Many of us had never even shared a meal with the members of the family. We saw one another on an occasional basis, but we really didn’t know much about one another. Had we been challenged we would have been hard-pressed to speak of the particular struggles another was experiencing. And we were essentially isolated as we struggled to cope with our own trials.
Though we gave lip-service to the teachings of the Word calling us to love one another deeply from the heart, we were more likely to express grudging tolerance for one another rather than genuine love. We were far more likely to react as the world reacts to those we felt to be our inferiors than we were to make the effort to build up others, to encourage others, to console those who wept. We were trained by the pulpit to be at the centre of our world, ignoring the call of the Master to be His flock. Though the Spirit of Christ confronted us and called us to live holy lives, we were more likely to be drawn to the model of this dying world than we were to be committed to the Body of Christ.
“WHERE IS ABLE YOUR BROTHER?” God expects that those who profess to know Him will know where their brothers are. God expects His people, people known as part of His Family, to know where each of those with whom they share life in the Body can be found. The Lord expects that those who profess to follow Him will assume responsibility for their brothers. God anticipates that those who know Him will seek the welfare of their brothers. When we shut our hearts from showing compassion and gentleness for our brothers, we sin against God.
Take some time to refresh your memory of the emphasis the Lord places on this business of loving one another as fellow worshippers of the Living God. After urging Christians to be self-controlled and sober-minded in light of our living in the last times, Peter then reveals what is most critical for all who follow the Lord when he writes, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” [1 PETER 4:8-11]. The most important thing you can do is to love your brother and to love your sister earnestly. Peter becomes incredibly practical in detailing how that love should be expressed. We should show hospitality and cease grumbling! We must invest our various gifts in one another, doing this so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.
Notice, that the love we are to demonstrate has nothing to do with how we feel about one another, nor even with whether the person to whom we express our love is worthy to receive that love in our view. John tells Christians, “We love because he first loved us” [1 JOHN 4:19].
Tragically, some who profess to love Christ have no love for their brothers. Such people need to hear the blunt assessment the Apostle of Love delivers when he writes, “Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes” [1 JOHN 2:11]. If all it takes to get you to give up on the assembly wherein the Spirit placed you is irritation at a fellow saint, you know nothing of love. If your inclination is to quit participating in the life of the Body when you don’t get your way, you know nothing of Christ’s love.
John cautions that failure to love your brother demonstrates that you are walking in darkness, and walking in darkness reveals some very disturbing truth about your life. Failure to love exposes you as having denied the message of the Apostles. John wrote, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” [1 JOHN 1:5-7].
Paul commended the Thessalonian Christians because they sought to please God. He wrote, “Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more” [1 THESSALONIANS 4:1]. They were pleasing God because they were walking in fellowship with one another. Paul urged them to do so even more!
Paul instructed Timothy to lead the congregation to offer up petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for everyone. He was especially focused on praying for those in authority; and the reason those under Timothy’s leadership were to be thus committed to prayer was so that we Christians could “lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” Tranquility and a quiet life were essential to a healthy church. Such characteristics are “good” and “it pleases God our Saviour” [1 TIMOTHY 2:1-3]. Therefore, when we bicker and complain about one another, when we quarrel, fuss, and feud, we are no longer pleasing God.
Paul penned a very serious warning to anyone who is inclined to disrupt the assembly. Let me point you to what is written in his Letter to Christians in Rome. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” [ROMANS 8:1-8].
To disrupt the unity of the assembly is to expose yourself as being in the flesh, and thus incapable of pleasing God. There is an even more frightful censure of such bitter action when the Apostle warns, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” [1 CORINTHIANS 3:16-17]. Whenever the action of anyone, and especially the action of a church member, threatens the unity of the assembly, that person has set himself or herself in opposition to the Living God. And God is on the record as warning that He will destroy that person.
You see, then, the Word calls us not only to know where our brother is, but cautions us against doing anything that would injure the Body. The Lord not only calls us to love one another with genuine love, but warns us that failure to do so leads to complications that will be resolved only with severe repercussions administered by God Himself. God takes seriously any act that threatens the Bride of Christ.
“THE VOICE OF YOUR BROTHER’S BLOOD IS CRYING TO ME FROM THE GROUND.” Some time back, Jerry Newcombe wrote an essay entitled, “The Deadly Sin of Anger on Display.” In that commentary, Newcombe wrote, “America has an anger problem. There was another random shooting—this time in a city east of Santa Cruz in California.
“The Mercury News reports: ‘At least four people were dead, including a suspect, and 15 people injured after a gunman cut through a security fence and opened fire on a crowd Sunday evening near the end of the Gilroy Garlic Festival, sending panicked festival goers running for their lives.’
“The gunman was reported to have opened fire on the crowd with an assault-style rifle. Witnesses heard someone shout, ‘Why are you doing this?’ and the gunman replied, ‘Because I’m really angry.’
“Before his death, the gunman posted on Instagram, ‘Read Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard,’ according to NBC News. That 1890 anti-Christian, racist screed is subtitled, ‘Or, Survival of the Fittest,’ and it promotes Social Darwinism. After all, if humanity is just glorified apes, then why should we be surprised when someone acts like one?—with apologies to apes. Indeed, ideas have consequences.” [2]
Well, anarchists who have so effectively stirred the pot among young “protestors” prove themselves to be quite capable of channelling youthful anger in order to overthrow institutions, and ultimately to destabilize nations. Anger exposes the inability to reason, reveals that people are operating on emotion without thinking of consequences of what they were doing. One might well ask what burning a fast-food restaurant or looting a big-chain store has to do with a desire to change methods of policing? How does destroying public property and tearing down statuary do to provide redress to a dead man? What we are witnessing in the riots and turmoil of the cities of the world are people that are angry—and they don’t even know why they are angry!
What is worse is that many politicians—almost always positioned on the left of the political spectrum—imagine they can harness the anger that is being displayed for their own sordid gain! They are eager to capitalize on the rage being expressed, until that rage is suddenly turned toward their own comfortable existence.
I said all this to bring us to the point of confessing that when professed Christians, members of the assembly, allow their anger to control them so that they verbally assault fellow saints, or so that they threaten the spiritual health of the congregation through insistence that the assembly acquiesce to their demands or when they threaten to break fellowship, these professed saints of the Most High God must realize that they differ not at all from the angry individuals in society whom they would otherwise decry as unreasonable.
Christians need to adopt the view of Scripture concerning our relationship to one another. Look at some of the admonitions Paul delivered to the various congregations. Writing the Christians in Rome, Paul urged Christians, “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight” [ROMANS 12:16].
Later in that same letter, the Apostle would pen the prayer that lay heavy on his heart for the Christians in Rome. He wrote, “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” [ROMANS 15:5-6].
How powerful is Paul’s plea to the Corinthians that they set aside their personal desires in order to find what pleases the Lord. Paul writes, “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, ‘I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas,’ or ‘I follow Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul” [1 CORINTHIANS 1:10-13]?
Clearly, living in harmony with one another figures large in the mind of the Apostle for all who follow the Risen Saviour if they intend to honour the Master. Learning to agree with one another rather than demanding that one must always get his or her way is essential to vital church life. To live in harmony will require that each one of us must be willing to surrender our personal rights for the benefit of others. This concept of seeking harmony is a practical illustration of what was written in the Philippian Letter. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” [PHILIPPIANS 2:3-4].
In the Ephesian Encyclical, Paul urged each one who names the Name of Christ, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” [EPHESIANS 4:1-3].
In a somewhat more extended plea included in his Letter to the Christians of Colossae, Paul wrote, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” [COLOSSIANS 3:5-17].
This plea for unity is not unique to the Apostle Paul. In Peter’s First Letter, we read the plea delivered by the Apostle to the Jews who has written, “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing” [1 PETER 3:8-9]. Peter’s final plea is for the saints to agree, to work through their differences in order to express sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
Before you think of breaking fellowship with the Christians who share this life in the Body because you are insistent upon getting your way, think of others! Consider the impact your selfish demands will have on the cause of Christ. If you have such casual esteem for the unity of the Body, think of this warning from the Word. “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” [1 CORINTHIANS 3:17].
ANGER AMONG THE SAINTS — We are commanded, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” [EPHESIANS 4:26-27]. Tragically, many among the professed people of God have seized upon the initial portion of that teaching—they have become experts at being angry. It is the second command, which is consequently the primary command, that somehow seems unattainable among a number of the professed saints of God. We are trained by our world to be easily angered, and in our anger we do sin. We harbour our anger, clasping it to our breast, even enjoying the rage that fills our lives. Thus, we have become expert at giving opportunity to the devil, even when we don’t want to give opportunity to the devil.
The great tragedy is that our anger will destroy us. People of a certain age perhaps will remember a song entitled “The Snake.” Al Wilson sang the song which tells the story of a woman who found a half-frozen snake. She took that snake home, cared for it, wrapped it in silk and placed it by the fire. Coming home from work, she found the snake had been revived. These are the lyrics to the last two verses.
Now she clutched him to her bosom, “You’re so beautiful,” she cried
“But if I hadn’t brought you in, by now you might have died”
Now she stroked his pretty skin again, and kissed and held him tight
But instead of saying thanks, that snake gave her a vicious bite
“I saved you,” cried the woman, “and you’ve bitten me, but why?”
“You know your bite is poisonous, and now I’m gonna’ die.”
“Oh, shut up, silly woman,” said the reptile with a grin,
“You knew darned well I was a snake before you took me in.” [3]
Then the chorus delivers the refrain, the plea from the snake.
“Take me in, O tender woman
Take me in for heaven’s sake
Take me in, O tender woman”
Sighed the snake
I don’t imagine that the song was intended to have a Christian message; yet, it presents a vivid picture of anger when anger is harboured. Anger will inject a poison into the life of anyone who attempts to hold it, or who attempts to coddle it. Anger will destroy relationships and enervate compassion. The Christian who permits anger to fester unchecked almost certainly will shortly dishonour the Lord. Giving in to anger, the enraged individual will destroy others, strain relationships, and render her testimony null and void. And the simmering rage smouldering in the breast of many Christians ensures that the churches are weak and susceptible to being powerless in the face of evil.
We need to recall Paul’s admonition, “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” [ROMANS 12:17-19].
I’ve presented the message with this one great goal in view—the people of God must not allow themselves to slip into the dreadful sin of thinking they can harbour anger, seeking to injure and destroy one another. Instead, each Christian must heed the admonition, “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor” [ROMANS 12:10].
As those who follow the Son of God, we must adopt as our lodestone for life within the Body of Christ, the teaching delivered by the Apostle of Love. John wrote, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” [1 JOHN 4:7-12].
The world has taught us that we should get our way when there is a disagreement. We even organize our churches so that we can vote for what we believe is our right. Unconsciously, we have adopted the view that fifty percent plus one makes us victors. Surely the instruction provided to the Corinthian church applies to us in this matter. In that First Letter to the Corinthians, we are taught, “To have legal disputes against one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated” [1 CORINTHIANS 6:7 CSB]?
To be certain, to carry our disagreements before unbelievers is sinful, but when we break fellowship because we want to win is doing the very thing that is condemned in this instance. Indeed, “Why not rather be cheated?” Why not surrender our pride for the cause of Christ?
Do you suppose the world is watching us and taking the measure of what we profess by how we act with one another? Early in the history of the Faith, a scholar from North Africa wrote an apologia of the Faith. Tertullian wrote, “The tried men of our elders preside over us, obtaining that honour not by purchase, but by established character. There is no buying and selling of any sort in the things of God. Though we have our treasure-chest, it is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion that has its price. On the monthly day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be able: for there is no compulsion; all is voluntary. These gifts are, as it were, piety’s deposit fund. For they are not taken thence and spent on feasts, and drinking-bouts, and eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined now to the house; such, too, as have suffered shipwreck; and if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons, for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God’s Church, they become the nurslings of their confession. But it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one another, for themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves will sooner put to death.” [4]
It was love, practical love for one another, that distinguished the early saints from the world in which they lived. And it is still love for one another, not that syrupy, saccharine emotion that is paraded as love by the world, that sets us apart from the world. We still have this admonition that guides us in our relationships with one another. Our Saviour has taught us, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” [JOHN 13:34-35].
Again, the Master has given those who follow Him the command to love one another. Jesus commands, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another” [JOHN 15:12-17].
Set aside personal agendas and seek to build one another. The teaching of the Lord is “Accept one another, just as the Messiah accepted you, for the glory of God” [ROMANS 15:7 ISV]. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Jerry Newcombe, “The Deadly Sin of Anger on Display,” Townhall.com, 1 August 2019, https://townhall.com/columnists/jerrynewcombe/2019/08/01/the-deadly-sin-of-anger-on-display-n2551015, accessed 31 July 2019
[3] Oscar Brown, Jr., “The Snake,” © Carlin America INC. 1963
[4] Tertullian, “The Apology,” in Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, (ed.), trans. S. Thelwall, vol. 3, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885) 46
