Dale Ridge church of Christ

One of my preacher friends that I work with on bibletruthforums.com recently recounted how he once told his congregation that he was advised by a friend to imagine his audience in their underwear in order to overcome the nervousness of public speaking. He went on to say to his audience that now that he had done that, he was no longer nervous but frightened by what he saw! One of the senior sisters took offense and told the elders of their congregation that she didn’t appreciate the preacher imagining her in her underwear and my friend was required to apologize to her.

As I think about how such a mess could be avoided by those of us that need to speak publically from time to time, it strikes me that my own speaking more often contains a gaff of some sort than not. Our brother James writes to us in James 3:2 that it takes a perfect man to not offend. Perfect. I take comfort in the fact that we know of so many eloquent speakers that can motivate us or impress us, but even they will occasionally offend through the tongue if we give them enough time.

Reading on in James 3:3-5, we are taught just how powerful the tongue is – it is compared to a ship’s rudder and a bit in a horse’s mouth. Even more vivid is the picture of how a great fire can be started with the smallest flame. As brothers and sister in the Lord’s church, we almost certainly will have an opportunity to be involved in an issue where someone has taken offense to another’s speech at some time in our life. As we teach and fellowship with each other, we need to be mindful of that we are all imperfect and should try to give a little room for each other to make mistakes, because we all will at some point.

Are we to just let mistakes go? No! In the matter of incorrect teaching, we should always take the brother aside and teach him “a more perfect way.” Most times we will find that they merely misspoke and he will be grateful have the opportunity to correct what he said.

We are given instructions in Matthew 18:15 for dealing with a brother that has offended us. We can take him aside and let him further explain or give him the opportunity to apologize. Not only is it sinful to do otherwise, but the brother will usually be grateful that he was able to fix something that could potentially have caused damage to our relationship.

Our responsibility is not only to save lost souls, but to continuously help each other get to heaven as well. Ephesians 4:2 reminds us to forbear (figuratively “to put up with”) one another in love and in Ephesians 4:32 we are to forgive one another as God has forgiven us. Let us be those that can first see that our brothers and sisters desire to get us to heaven together, not as competitors in a race.

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Filed under: Butch Adams, Devotional on October 14th, 2008