I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you
yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to
instruct one another. (Romans 15:14)
There are two sides to every coin.
Today's passage makes it clear that imperfect members of an imperfect church
can and should instruct one another. The first side of the coin is the
instructors. People can be unthinkingly cruel. They can be arrogant and
bigoted. Members of the Church should learn to deal with one another according
to Biblical principles (including Matthew 18:15-18,) making sure that there is
no plank in their own eyes as they deal with specks in their brothers' but the point is that members in the Church
are supposed to instruct on another. If we do not, we are disobeying God's
design for the Church.
The other side of the coin is the
person receiving the instruction. Too
often today, the response to instruction is "Don't judge me until you've lived my life," and
"Let me live my life!" Such an unwillingness to learn is pride and
pride is sin It's also foolishness.
One key in instructing and being
instructed is to lovingly keep the focus of the criticism on the problem, not
on the people. I heard it said once that Jesus never met a prostitute. That
means He never met an adulteress. However, He did meet women who were guilty of
adultery and He told one that while He did not condemn her, that she should "go and sin no more." He is our example.
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