By David ReayFriday 16 Sep 2022LifeWords DevotionalsDevotionsReading Time: 1 minute
And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. (NLT)
Discrimination has a bad name nowadays. We are urged not to discriminate against others, as any discrimination is regarded as unjust. All very well, but if we take that word at its literal meaning, discrimination is not only good but necessary. It literally means recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another.
It is good and necessary in relationships. We get an idea of it from what Paul writes to his readers. The idle and disruptive are to be warned, the disheartened are to be encouraged, the weak are to be helped. And patience is to be extended to all irrespective of how we might feel about them.
It takes godly wisdom to figure out when to give someone a figurative kick in the pants and when to give someone an arm around the shoulder. It does no good to weakly tolerate someone who is harming community, while at the same time demanding the timid and fragile among us get up on their feet and stop moping around.
A loving community is in this way a discriminating community. Not everyone is alike, not all can be treated exactly the same way. So patient discernment is needed. And this comes from the Spirit of God whose role has always been to disturb the comfortable and to comfort the disturbed.
Blessings,
David