How Shall We Cover a Member?

How Shall We Cover a Member?

A covering is something that is placed between the eye and the item that is covered so that only the cover is seen, but not the item that is covered.

The covering does not change the item that has been covered! What we are embarrassed by must be something bad. We must never justify something that is bad. Woe unto him who does something like that! We can’t possibly lie. However, by placing something between the eye of the accuser and the accused, we can lead people’s attention to something else.

It is very effective when we, by God’s grace and wisdom, can pull out a covering that mirrors the accuser’s own folly (which is not so very little, since he even ventured an accusation), so he can draw back and think about it.

If we lack wisdom in this area, we ought to seek her, hoping to find her, for she is so willing on behalf of the one who loves her that even if we arose early in the morning to seek her, wisdom would already be dressed, waiting for us.

Wasn’t it precisely this kind of covering work that Jesus performed when the Pharisees wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery? Jesus didn’t burst out with an eloquent speech. He searched for a prudent answer. He wrote on the ground as long as He was waiting for the answer to be given to Him. Then He drew a mirror screen between their eyes and the woman. By doing this, the woman vanished from before their eyes so that they put the stones away because they couldn’t stone the person they didn’t see. They saw only their own, various faults, so that they, occupied with their own faults, went away humiliated.

In like manner, love always covers a multitude of sins and weaknesses of all kinds (1 Peter 4:8); not because it is indifferent to whether there is a little more or less of them, but because it is prudent to cover them temporarily in order to address the matter later if the person concerned can bear it.