Denying Them the Opportunity

Denying Them the Opportunity

This is one of the noblest traits you can find in life: to deny yourself your good, reasonable rights and thus live for the salvation and the benefit of others. Paul and the Corinthians were confronted by false apostles. These were excellent speakers, resembling true apostles; therefore it was difficult to get rid of them. However, Paul knew what to do in order to reveal that they were not like him. He did not accept wages from the Corinthians for his ministry among them. In this area the false prophets could not prove that they were like Paul, and so he denied them the opportunity of saying that they were like him.

If you want to deny false servants of the Lord the opportunity to pose as true servants, you can usually just offer them simple, hard, physical work, and they will quickly receive a “revelation” that it is “God’s will” for them to travel to another place.

In the epistle of Jude we read about false brethren who took part in love feasts, feasting without fear. In 1 Corinthians 6:12 it is written, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful.” It is lawful for us to have love feasts, but we are also permitted to deny ourselves by not having them. If we learn that false brothers gorge themselves at such meetings, we can cut them off from this opportunity of playing the genuine brother by discontinuing these love feasts.

Backbiting is forbidden, but speaking in confidence about others in purity and goodness is lawful, and it can be helpful. However, it is evident that often much evil results from such confidential, pure conversations. For example, one of those present is careless enough to mention some of the things that were discussed in confidence—perhaps also a little bit inaccurately—to someone who uses the statements for an evil purpose. Or someone who previously was more or less trustworthy and in the right spirit, is later found to be failing and use such statements for evil.

In this way, such conversations about others may cause more harm than good, in which case they fall under this word: “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful.”

We certainly are doing very well by cutting off a lot of opportunities for evil by limiting all conversations about others to that which is necessary. When it concerns those who are younger this means restricting it to very, very little, and when it concerns older people, it means restricting it considerably.

May our love for souls help all of us to that end. Amen.