Where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice . (Proverbs 13:10) Of course, my first though on reading this is, “Oh, this perfectly describes those _______. They’re all about strife.” Fortunately, my conscience is strong enough to point out that I tend to point fingers, too. I like to argue in the formal sense. There are two points past which it is unsafe to go. The first is to venture into the land in which winning becomes the focus. I win. You lose. The second is the trek into the jungle in which the people are the focus. I’m good, smart, right, educated… You’re wicked, stupid, wrong, uneducated… The safe territory keeps the focus on the ideas. This is right, valid, justified. That is not. The goal is agreement, not conquest. ...
“Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way.” (Daniel 3:29) Nebuchadnezzar said this right after he invited Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of the fiery furnace into which he had thrown them because they had refused to bow down to the 90’ statue he’d had built. Once the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego impressed Nebuchadnezzar, he tried to co-opt Jehovah, making Him one of Nebuchadnezzar’s gods and threatening to punish anyone who even spoke badly of Him, just as he’d tried to punish Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. You’d think it was abundantly clear that God didn’t need Nebuchadnezzar’s protection, but no doubt he thought G. od would be impressed with his zeal. Eight hundred to a thousand years later, another king did roughly the same t...