…Be at peace among yourselves. – 1 Thessalonians 5.13
I have to wonder sometimes about how Robert Stephanus
decided to separate verses in the Greek New Testament in 1551. Most of the time
it makes real sense, and if I knew Greek I might understand it better. This is
an example. The end of this verse, 'be at peace among yourselves,' seems to fit
in better with the next verse. If you are not careful, you can miss it here.
Be at peace among yourselves.
Sometimes it is challenging living in a country with to few
believers. Our numbers really are quite tiny. That can be discouraging and
sometimes there are not good chances for fellowship. It’s not like that in some places. When we
lived in the States there were loads of believers. One could be very picky
about their Christian friends. Pragmatically speaking having a falling out was
not that big a deal because there are plenty of other Christian friends.
Here I find that ‘being at peace’ is a much bigger deal. I
have had to learn not to pick fights over the non-essentials. While it is never
right to stand with error and it is never right to tolerate false teaching
there are an awful lot of minor issues that cause fights and disagreements. I
have found that there are Christians who don’t do things the same way I would
do them. I may not even like the way they do some things, but they are my
brothers and sisters in Christ.When our numbers are small we learn the importance of being at peace with each other.
When the whole world is against us, when our brethren are
being slaughtered in places like Iraq and Syria, it is vital that we learn how
to be at peace with each other.
We can’t afford to sweat the small stuff. If we can’t learn
to be at peace with each other how can we preach peace to the world around us?
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