Let’s pick up on a theme that surfaced a couple of times in the “From Your Window” comments.
More than one of our friends talked about how hard it is to see a recurring pattern of church people attacking their leaders and hurting one another.
Why does it happen? What causes us to turn into cannibals when we all know that truth without love is noise… (1Cor 13:1-7); and that even in courageously confronting false teachers, “A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will” (2Tim 2:24-26).
In the face of such inspired words, what gets into us to beat one another up? Why do we follow those who treat others this way?
Is it in the water we are drinking? Is there something in our diet that keeps us from seeing that we aren’t just called to truth, but also to complementing attitudes that are true to God– the God who reminds us that the whole law is fulfilled in one “word”: to love our neighbor as ourself (Gal 5:14)?
In the very next verse Paul adds, “If you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!” (Gal 5:15).