Bearing With One Another

Scripture Verse that caught my attention today: Romans 2:19 and if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, 21 you, then, that teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal?

Observation: Teaching ourselves is perhaps the hardest teaching to do.

Application: These days I’m a big proponent that, if they can do so respectfully and peaceably, it’s healthy for people of differing opinions to continue in fellowship with one another--whether in person or online. To do so often requires degrees of humility, patience, understanding, and acceptance that are not always easy to garner. So often there is a natural urge to ‘correct’ the other, to ‘prove’ a point, and to rationalize that, if the other person doesn’t ‘get’ it, they are just clearly misguided and we’ll just have to entrust him or her to God to straighten him or her out.

Maybe.

Then again, maybe the divine assistance is needed just a little closer to home!

Currently I am at a synod assembly (basically an annual meeting of ordained and lay church leaders in the denomination through which I serve). Yesterday I ran into someone who not only disagrees with me (no problem there), but who does so in such a way that my dander tends to go up a notch. What’s up with that? Does anybody ever tend to rile you up like that?

On the one hand it might be tempting for me/us to mentally place such a person in a box of people like the Apostle Paul describes in the verse above. But upon further reflection, such an attitude on my part reveals that I too would fit well in just such a box! I might feel as ‘sure’ of their wrong attitude as they are ‘sure’ of my wrong opinion!

And that’s why it’s important to continue being in some form of fellowship with those with whom we disagree! In the presence of those with differing opinions/views is the opportunity not so much to sharpen our respective arguments, but to sharpen our ability to see the mirror faults in ourselves. We all have something to offer, but none of us has ‘everything’ to offer. Each time we ‘bear with’ another we experience anew a tangible reminder of how our Lord ‘bears with” us. It’s a good lesson to keep teaching ourselves.

Prayer: Lord, thanks for the plethora of people in my life who help who, knowingly and unknowingly, intentionally and unintentionally, help me see my own areas for growth and your ways of instruction. It’s one reason we need each other to serve as visible reminders of how much we all need you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

(Readings today included: 1 Kings 7, 1 Chronicles 4, Psalm 98, Romans 2)