The following comment was made recently and I wanted to share it with you, along with my own thoughts on the issue. This is a very important question and I thank our reader for sharing it. Are we required to always “think the best” of whatever people do or say? After all, doesn’t Paul say in 1 Cor 13 that we are to “believe all things.”
Here is the comment:
Continue reading “Does 1 Corinthians 13 Require us to “Think the Best”?”
Most of you know that I teach a videocast Bible study on Wednesdays at 10am Pacific time. This last Wednesday I began to deal with the statement that insists “God loves everyone,” and which, covertly also insists that “you better believe this or else.” It is vital that we get a firm hold on what the Bible says about this subject or else we will be guilted/duped/coerced into further bondage to the wicked.
You can watch the video here. It will take two or three sessions to cover this.
I have had the opportunity recently to watch an ongoing debate (to put it lightly – “war” is probably a better word for it) between professing Christians. I read what they write and listen to them speaking, and I have observed something that just makes me shake my head in amazement. There is an unwritten tradition, a rule if you will, that says that in the church we all must speak “nice” to one another. After all, so goes the assumption, we are all Christians and therefore we are all “good.” Oh, someone here and there might get off track and be mistaken, but we must never stop believing that their motives are good. That’s the thinking, you see. And so in these battles you see the participants calling one another “brother” or going on at lengths to be sure everyone knows that no matter what they say, they don’t doubt the heart of their opponents and everyone just loves one another. In such settings, it is an absolute no-no to speak of an action or a motive or a person as being evil.
And that, I am proposing, lays fertile soil for the wicked to practice their wickedness unmolested.
