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Pleasing Them

             Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up (Romans 15:2)

            Suppose your neighbor had a house that desperately needs work and you agreed to work on it. How would you respond if the neighbor asked you to put in an inground pool half of which extends into the house ten feet? Or, if they told you to install holes in the roof? Suppose they insisted that you install wiring that is not to code, or that you mount razor blades on the floor. Would you insulate with asbestos? Would you do it to please them?

            Most of us would like this verse to end with the word neighbors when we are the neighbor to be pleased but we’re all about deciding what is “for their good” if we’re the ones called on to do the pleasing. We think we know best how to build our own houses as well as the houses of our neighbors. We’d never put asbestos in the walls or razor blades in the floor, or expose the neighbors to the cold they’d face if they had a pool that extended through the wall of the house, or holes in the roof. No matter how much they claimed it would please them, we’re just not that cruel.

            But then we get on social media and we’re told that we should please women who claim they have a right to harm other people. We’re told we should please people who want to normalize the use of toxins, or who want to do themselves great harm under the misguided notion that mutilating their bodies will make them happy. We don’t have the right to speak against these things or deny them their “rights” but when it comes to their pleasing us, they pronounce that what pleases us is not good for us, and we must be denied our pleasures for our own good (or theirs.)

            But the verse specifically tells us to please them for their good, not their harm. So how do we figure out how to please for their good? The first step is to prayerfully study to find out what Scripture has to say on the subject. Will the thing that will please them please God or draw them closer to God? Will what will please them result in danger or harm to them or to anyone else or interfere with anyone else drawing closer to God? If not, then no matter how much you’re pleasing them, you’re violating what Scripture tea

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