A Precious Book

By Andrew Beasley     The Bible is a beautiful book revealed to us by God through His inspired authors. This can be true while also acknowledging there are many heartbreaking aspects of what is written within the Biblical text. One that comes to mind has to do with our scripture reading. Paul, in writing to the church in Ephesus, must remind the brethren there to “be kind to one another” (Eph. 4:32). One would think this would be second nature for Christians given the kindness that God has continually shown to man.     We will talk about it more in today’s sermon but there are a few different words that are often translated as kindness in the New Testament: (1) philanthropia, (2) philadelphia and (3) chrestotes. You may remember that the city Philadelphia is called the city of brotherly love. So one way we might think of kindness is that it is love put into action. Using these three words as our guide, we can learn that kindness can be understood as love put into action toward mankind as a whole, love put into action toward those with whom we share a close bond, and love put into action in our every day disposition and the way we carry ourselves.     We should not need to be instructed to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” but sometimes we lose sight of who we are called to be. Aren’t we thankful that God has never forgotten to be kind to us? Let us do our best to cultivate this aspect of the fruit of the Spirit every day.

- Andrew Beasley serves as a minister with the Northwest Church of Christ in Greensboro, NC. He may be contacted through the congregation's website: https://nwchurchofchrist.com/about/