Wednesday, February 1, 2017

February 1 Thought for the day....dealing with verbal attacks


Bet you didn't think the Bible had anything to say about this topic? It happens to all of us sooner or later. People will misunderstand, have a bad day, or simply not like you sooner or later all of us will be the victim of some kind of verbal attack.

"when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things." 1 Corinthians 4:13

Social media seems to be replete with all sorts of personal assaults. We seem to have given up on civility in our nation, the time where we could disagree but still have respect for another and their opinion. So what do we do if we are the victim of one of these attacks?

Paul was the victim of constant attacks. He was constantly going against the grain of all of the cultures, Roman, Jewish, and Greek. People don't like change, it scares them so often when change, even for the better, is imposed, they attack.

Paul's use of the word "slander" here in the Greek means to slur, to smear, to vilify, to maliciously malign someone's character or name. Have you had that happen? Chances are if you are on social media the answer is, "yes." If you were raised in a non-Christian home, the answer is, "yes." Unfortunately, even if you were raised in a different denomination than you are in now the answer may be, "yes." How do we respond?

Paul challenges us to respond correctly with two words, "we entreat." The interpretation here is that we still need to reflect Jesus. We need to gather with those that have a "Christ-likeness" mindset to be encouraged, that the Lord can handle this, be our defense, and need time for the Lord to show us how to respond. Others will fire us up for vengeance or some kind of evil response.

If you want God to defend, if you want God to have His way in them and us, and if we want to grow in His power and might we must allow our brothers and sisters to encourage us to act like Jesus in all things. It is not easy, but God does such a better job and defending us then we could ever imagine. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt:)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I have that same T-shirt!!! God does handle our problems much better than we do! Sometimes I literally must bite the inside of my cheeks just so I don't say anything, this is not an easy thing to do BUT it is a necessary one if we want to be like Jesus. I've learned (the hard way)to sometimes not say anything at all and let God handle it! Guess what He does such a better job than me.