Edifying your Neighbor

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     Romans 15:1-4 says, “ We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.  Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.   For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me.  For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”

     I recall several years ago writing about cat and dog theology.  You can find some interesting examples between the two types of animals.  A cat is a joy sucker and a dog is a joy giver.  No matter what you do to a dog, it will wag its tail just because you are there.  A cat on the other hand, will turn and walk away without paying any attention to you.  Now, i do like cats and have had four of them and when they wanted to be held, I could but more than once I got the straight leg pushing against me as the cat wanted down right at that moment.  People are like that.  Some are joy suckers and some are joy givers.

     While personalities are certainly different with everyone, we are still exhorted to please our neighbors for their good to edification.  That applies no matter how old you are or where you live.  There are going to be th ose times when you may want to say or do something that would be just a tad hurtful towards an acquaintance, maybe even a so-called friend or just a new neighbor.  That is when we need to ask ourselves if what we are thinking is indeed going to edify our neighbor or is it meant to tear them down a notch.  I often need to stop and think before I put my mouth in motion.  I recently made a casual statement to my 33 year old nurse that she would soon be able to get a senior discount at McDonalds.  That was definitely the wrong thing to say and her expression and words after that were strong indicators that  what I had said was definitely not edifying at all.  No matter what I said after that, I couldn’t get out of it or justify in any way my comment.  If we don’t know t he things that are edifying and those which are not, just look at the Old Testament.  The final verse of today’s passage refers to the writings of the Old Testament and that they were written or our learning.  Adam Clarke says if this verse, “This refers not only to the quotation from the 69th Psalm, but to all the Old Testament scriptures; for it can be to no other scriptures that the apostle alludes. And, from what he says here of them, we learn that God had not intended them merely for those generations in which they were first delivered, but for the instruction of all the succeeding generations of mankind.”  That means us.  Praise God today for His perfect teachings through His Word to us, the Bible.