Marsha's Musings: A Much Neglected Scripture

My Quiet Time

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. (1 Thessalonians 5:12, 13 ESV)

I have been a member of at least two churches that have had members who do not take this verse seriously.  It is very sad and ugly.

It is one thing if the preacher is not preaching the Word as he should be.  If he is not sticking to the truth of God's Word, then something needs to be done about him.

But the churches I am referring to, the preachers stuck to the Word of God and preached the truth and yet, there were church members, professed Christians, who took issue with the pastor.  

It was disgruntled people who didn't like how the pastor ran the church services, or they didn't like what he preached because their toes got stepped on, or they didn't like his personality or the fact that he expected the church members to settle their own offenses with one another instead of expecting him to jump in and fix the offending party.

These people then set about to harrass the pastor in various ways.  Some decided to withhold their tithes.  Others went around stirring up other people to take their side.  In one church it culminated in many people leaving and the pastor getting voted out.  It was very sad.  Now that church has turned into the entertainment church complete with $8 tickets to have the privilage of attending their dessert Christmas Musical.

Then there are those who do not take the second part of the verse seriously.  "Be at peace among yourselves."  We have been on the end of the stick of this.  Not a fun place to be.  There always seems to be at least one person in every church (usually more) that thinks they have the gift of critisicm.  These people take it upon themselves to do one of two things.

1.  They go around and gripe about everything and everybody.

or  

2.They believe it is their God given duty to rebuke and correct others for every little thing that they percieve to be out of line with their legalistic view of how a Christian should conduct their life...all under the guise of "helping" and "encouraging" them.

There is no such thing as the gift of critisicm, by the way.  It's called discontentment.  And those who believe it is their God given duty to go around rebuking and correcting others for every little infraction of their standard of conduct are just being arrogant.

None of these things promote peace among church members.

I need to pray and examine my own life to be sure that I am not doing these same things.  Sometimes when I am caught on the end of the stick of someone doing these things toward me or a loved one, it's easy for me to get caught in the trap of spending my energy pointing fingers back instead of following the direction of Matthew 18, which is to confront the offending party and try to show them in love what they are doing so they can change.