Against your comrade raise not your sword, for the enemy is fast approaching, and we are but few.
Sometimes we get a little too heated, don’t we? We make statements in anger regarding a situation at hand. We may not even have all the information at our disposal in order to make an educated statement.
Yet we speak our minds and many times, these statements wound people.
They were never meant to of course. In our anger we just spoke too soon. Rather than repenting of the statement we have made, we find ways to justify it and dig ourselves into a deeper hole, continuing to divide even amongst the brethren.
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.
Ephesians 4:26–27
It doesn’t matter if you think what you said was truthful or not. There is always a proper way to present truth. When you present truth in an offensive manner, you ought to apologize for the manner in which you communicated. I didn’t say apologize for your stance. I said apologize for the manner in which you made the statement.
A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger._
Proverbs 15:1
Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
Colossians 4:6
What do I mean apologize regarding the manner? We live in day where people on both sides of the political/spiritual aisle associate attacking a person’s character with defending their position. My friend, that is just not so. It is not biblical either.
Here’s a good example. Let’s say someone votes a different way than you? Well, to you, they are probably a God-hating, poor excuse of a human being who doesn’t care about the next generation and probably isn’t saved! Well, bring that up to them, and the person who voted the other way will probably call you a rich nationalist who hates people from other countries!
How easy it has become for disagreements to turn into nothing more than character assassinations! How dare Christians act the same way. Yet we see it played out all the time. It needs to stop. How dare we question a fellow Christian’s salvation on the basis that they did something different than us as if we are the ultimate authority on the matter. God has no part in such conversation. That’s wickedness.
There is a civil way to discuss disagreements properly, but when you won’t even sit down and look the other person in the eye and hear what they have to say, you are just as intolerant as the liberal college campus you despise. When you take to the internet and social media to tear down true Christians by name that you disagree with, I mean, how do you expect the lost world to take us seriously?
He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.
Proverbs 18.13
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
James 1:19–20
We are so few in number as it is my friends. Let us as Christians, at least those of us in the same churches, seek to understand one another and live peaceably with one another, working together knowing the coming of the Lord is nigh. I understand disagreements will come. I understand debates and fighting will occur. Let it be civil. Let it not be aired online on social media. Let us come together, as men and women of the Most High God and settle our differences respectfully, and not with war.