Itching For A Good Fight

It feels like our culture is just itching for a good fight.

Politics…Let’s Fight

Social Issues…Let’s Fight

Religious Disagreement…Let’s Fight

The church in Corinth, as outlined in the New Testament letter of I Corinthians, was the same way. They were fighting about everything from whose teacher was the best to sexual sin. In the first 12 chapters of the letter, the author is addressing one fight after another. Then comes chapter 13:

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Paul’s message was pretty clear. If you are going to fight for something, advocate for something, put so much effort into something…let it be love.  Love does require effort. It is an effort that is driven by the grace of Jesus and powered by the Holy Spirit but it does require effort none the less.

It requires almost no effort to lose your cool and blast someone on social media. It requires a ton of thought to figure out how to show patience to someone you disagree with politically.

It requires almost no effort to bring up someone’s past and beat them with it like a sledgehammer.  Keeping no record of wrongs requires a discipline of thought and action.  A discipline that says, “I’m going to focus on what is praiseworthy and positive in them.”

It requires almost no effort to be sarcastic and mean. Love is kind. It requires a thoughtful and measured response to use our words to build others up and encourage them.

Love requires some fight, but it is a fight worth engaging. Our culture could use an opportunity to see love at work in the local church. A love that says….

We may disagree politically, but you are not my enemy.

We may disagree on social issues, but I am going to treat you with unending kindness.

We may disagree on some life decisions, but I am committed to loving you the way Jesus has loved me.

I am itching for a good fight. How about you?