In the previous article we endeavored to demonstrate that strife between brethren is cause by a lack of meekness in the individual, and therefore a resultant lack of mercy.
In exploring the meaning of meekness as used in the Old Testament we suggested that the proper attitude was to bear and ignore unjust criticism and reproach. A brother has written to observe as follows: “to be meek is to listen, but the operative point is response. I can assume the attack to be unjust and unwarranted or I can listen and consider if the fault be mine, is the admonition one I need and, ultimately, is it for my good? Can we possibly be meek if we ignore the adverse remarks? To ignore may be contemptuous or even arrogant. Surely we must listen, consider and respond correctly. The criticism may be right and even for our own good.” We thank the brother for taking our thinking one step further.
In considering the real meaning of mercy (chesed) the same brother has suggested that “compassionate concern” is a better rendering than “loving kindness”—the latter phrase smacking somewhat of an act that requires of me no more than a benign benevolence. “Compassionate concern has a grip that comforts and heals”. Good! We’ll accept that too!
The brother sums up: Truth—to confirm and support the things God requires of us: Meekness—to respond correctly; and Mercy—a compassionate concern.
This prepares us now for a consideration of the cure to strife between brethren: The cure – Forgiveness:
Compassionate concern cannot help but result in an expression of forgiveness towards those who have offended or antagonized us.
Paul has already expressed it for us, of course: “And be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Eph. 4:32.
The foundation stone in all of our dealings with brethren and sisters in the ecclesia is this matter of forgiveness towards one another. It is revealing that after teaching the disciples how to pray in the Lord’s prayer, the only aspect of the prayer which the Lord Jesus commented upon was that of forgiveness:
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Mth. 6:14.
All we have to say in the next few paragraphs can be summarized in Paul’s letter to Colosse: “Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind. meekness long-suffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you. so also do ye”. Col. 3:12.
Here is the cure to all strife: “Forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any. In our definition of meekness given before: a modest mind is one which prefers to bear injuries rather than return them, we might change one word: a modest mind is one which forgives injuries rather than return them. Even this can be taken a step further.
In The Teaching of the Master Bro. Sargent gives the illustration under the law of the man who has come to the Temple with his offering. The lamb he brings has been found to be without blemish, and accepted; it is slain, and is about to be cut up to be laid on the altar of burnt offering when, suddenly, there is a surprising interruption: the worshiper asks that the sacrifice may be left until he has gone on an errand and returns.
We can imagine the astonished look of the priests. Only religious duty of the most pressing kind could justify such an unconventional course. The man has at the last moment remembered a grievance –not which he has against someone else; but which someone else has against him. Note this: a grievance which someone else has against him. 1/ must be removed before he can be in communion with his God. The principle of course is found in Mth. 5:23-24: “If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother has ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” Please note: the man remembered: not a grievance he had against someone else; but a grievance that someone else had against him!
Brethren, this is a beautiful principle. “Beautiful” because it not only maintains our fellowship with another; but it maintains our fellowship with God.
Strife between brethren begins simply by brethren having a difference of opinion. It may be on conduct, it may be on principle, it may be on the application of principle to ecclesial affairs. There are any number of subjects upon which earnest brethren (or sisters) may disagree and then fall out.
Bro. Islip CoIlyer has an excellent chapter on this subject in The Guiding Light “In the same religious community, in the same family, there are disputes which grow according to the law of extremes until there is a permanent estrangement . . . Extremes may grow in the mind until they lead to a most serious lack of balance, almost akin to insanity. Although they form a species of mental cancer they obey the law of growth: that is: they grow by nourishment and use . . . Many years ago it was remarked by the man to whom God gave special wisdom that ‘a soft answer turneth away wrath’: that ‘yielding pacifieth great offences’. All observers of human nature agree that this is true but most people want someone else to give the soft answer — they look to the other party in the dispute to do all the yielding!”.
Healing:
At the beginning of this article we adopted a definition of mercy: Compassionate concern having a grip that comforts and heals. This must have been what Solomon had in mind when he penned Eccl. 10:4: “Yielding pacifieth great offences”. The revised version has it: “gentleness leaves great sins undone”. The word “yielding” literally means healing. We find it in Mal. 4:2: “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings”. Again in Prov. 12:18 the same word is translated “health”:
“There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is That’s the cure, brethren: Compassionate concern—the fruit of power, remember—compassionate concern, expressed in forgiveness; a willingness to yield and therefore heal.’
But: Who is going to be wise?
Who is going to yield?
Who is going to heal ?
It is generally accepted that the brother who is in the wrong is the one that should yield. The brother who has been offended ____ he’s the one who is supused to go and seek out the one who offended him. The Ecclesial Guide puts it down in black and white: “If a brother takes offence at what a brother has said or done, he is bound to meet that other in private interview for the discussion of the grievance between the two alone.” This is true, and let us not take away from it at all. But, in the illustration already referred to of the man leaving his sacrifice at the altar, he left and sought out his brother, not because he had been offended, but because he knew the other brother had been offended!
The fundamental principle involved is this: It matters not who is right, or who is wrong. It matters not what brother is offended, or which is the offender. The essential principle is that brethren be reconciled one to another — a mutual reconciliation as in Mth. 5:24 — before they bring themselves as living sacrificer to the altar on Sunday morning. Otherwise they cannot walk in Truth together. They cannot walk together in Christ.
And so here is that beautiful principle expressed again. There are two brethren. One is the offended and one is the offender. Both realize that they cannot continue in fellowship unless there is reconciliation. They come together and have a chat. There is a healing of the rift . . . How could there possibly be strife if brethren were governed by this principle? And we are not mis-quoting the apostle Paul when we say once again: they who do not these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God! This is true Meekness; meekness resulting in compassionate concern; compassionate concern resulting in forgiveness; forgiveness resulting in healing.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One