Living in the Spirit
October 7, 2016
Scripture Reading: 2 Timothy 2:8-15
Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth. –2 Timothy 2:14-15
People of faith are very good at wrangling over words. As we have seen illustrated in Congress and our state legislature so is the government. The only thing gained through wrangling over words is stalemate. We are not responsible for anything if we cannot get those “other” people to do things our way.
Paul dealt with this a lot in forging the formation of the church. He had to find compromises on everything from wearing hats to eating meat offered to idols. We read over these segment of scripture with glazed eyes because we feel we are so far past such discussions. Are we? The issues of the first century were just as important to them as the issues of the 21st century are to us. Paul worked toward finding common sense answers even to agreeing to disagree about some things. He did that by continually reminding people the overriding purpose of their call, recognizing that Jesus Christ is Lord. What do you think the people of the 41st century would think of our discord? Will they still be recognizing that Jesus Christ is Lord?
A new model for helping the homeless emerged in recent years that seems to be working. It involves providing housing first and then dealing with the problems that may have resulted in the homelessness in the first place. Implementing such a program requires an amazing amount of dedication, coordination, and cooperation among a broad spectrum of organizations. These folks do not have time to wrangle over words. They are living and doing justice.
Prayer: Lord, bless us with common sense to see that justice can be attained in many ways if we want it enough. Help us blend our gifts to address the challenges of our times. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.