YES AND NO

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14 NIV)

Terror seized me by the throat a few months into my engagement to be married. Ardor turned to horror. Hot pursuit suddenly got cold feet. This came with a fundamental realization: If I had this woman, I couldn't have any of the others. If I said "yes" to one, I was saying "no" to millions. Not that this was the breadth of my options, mind you -- but whatever options I might have had before I said my vows, they were no more after I said them…

Every yes contains a no. And if you can't learn to say one, you won't learn to say the other. It certainly describes the way Christians and churches can drift into heresy and confusion…

Learning to say the yes and the no: Few issues portend so much for the future of the church, because none carries so much potential to fly in the face of the spirit of the age… It's the "Who's to Say?" syndrome: Who's to say what is right? The answer, it seems, is everyone, or no one, or both. Whatever. It's cool.

Faithful stewards of the household of God must practice the discipline of saying both yes and no. It's hard, it's not fun, and it doesn't usually preach to packed houses. But believers in every age have had to learn it or lose the faith…

Saying no is part of the nature of our faith… Its narrowness is the narrowness of the birth canal, or of a path between two precipices -- or of a lifetime spent loving one woman. 

-- Excerpted from Ben Patterson in LeadershipJournal.net

#6231

A SERIOUS CONCERN

In his first letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul says (in Eugene Peterson's translation The Message): "I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I'll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common." (I Corinthians 1:10)…

We live in a time when there are too many conflicts, too little cooperation, and too few people who are willing to get along. Simple courtesy, the ability to compromise, and the willingness to think of the larger good -- those things seem to be in short supply. We are reaching the point where the very social fabric is coming unraveled…

I suggest the following steps for each of us and all of us to take:

1. Start by saying "I could be wrong" when expressing your opinions. That simple caveat allows room for the other person to have a different opinion. And it is also the truth – we may well be wrong, even when we have a strong opinion.

2. Practice stating opposing opinions without labeling or cynicism. The ability to explain positions with which we disagree means that we have truly listened and learned. It also makes it more likely that we will convince others to consider our opinions.

3. Agree to disagree without becoming disagreeable. There is nothing which says we must always agree, but our disagreeing can be civil and polite.

4. Don't go thermo-nuclear on every issue. Most issues are not ultimate, so don't ramp up the rhetoric on every little thing.

5. Allow God to speak for Himself and don't presume God agrees with you on every one of your opinions.

Will these five steps eliminate all of the divisions and violence in our society and all the divisions in our churches? Of course not. But we must start somewhere. As the Apostle Paul says, "We must get along with each other." We must. 

-- U.M. Bishop Mike Coyner (1949-2020)

ANCHORED DEEP

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts… Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly…" (Colossians 3:15,16)

The Christian in the midst of a crisis doesn't allow everyone's opinion or everyone's feelings to cause him to drift away from what is most important. He sets his anchor deep in the Word and firm in his faith. 

-- Max Lucado


#4412

THE ONLY OPINION THAT COUNTS

“Your Word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”  (Psalm 119:105 NIV)

George Will writes in “Men at Work”: "Baseball umpires are carved from granite and stuffed with microchips…they are professional dispensers of pure justice.  Once when Babe Pinelli called Babe Ruth out on strikes, Ruth made a populist argument.  Ruth reasoned fallaciously (as populists do) from raw numbers to moral weight: 'There's 40,000 people here who know that last one was a ball, tomato head.' Pinelli replied with the measured stateliness of John Marshall: 'Maybe so, but mine is the only opinion that counts'."

Christians are also pressed by the weight of numbers aligned against the moral law of God.  But the Christian knows that in the end, only one opinion counts: that of the beneficent Umpire of all human affairs.

-- Mark Turnbough

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