Setting the Wrong Example
Divorce and the Bible, Part 4
The first part of Ecclesiastes
7:1 reads, A good
name is better than precious ointment… Commentary from Jamieson,
Faussett, and Brown had this to say about a ‘good name’: character;
a godly mind and life; not mere reputation with man, but what a man is in the
eyes of God, with whom the name and reality are one thing. This alone is
‘good’, while all else is ‘vanity’ when made the chief end.
How we are seen in God’s
eyes, and the brethren, is more important that how we are seen in the eyes of
man. When something comes along, like a divorce, and disrupts that godly
character, we struggle to maintain that good influence we once had.
The Example set by Men and Women
The apostle Paul wrote, in
Titus 2:1-5 about how both men and women are to conduct themselves that they
might be a good example in the local congregation and out in the world, But as for you, speak the things
which are proper for sound doctrine: that the older men be sober, reverent,
temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; the older women likewise, that
they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers
of good things-- that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to
love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to
their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.
We Must be Consistent!
Our lives must be such that
we can be a good example when we teach on subjects; especially that of marriage
and divorce. If our lives are different from what we teach, how can we convince
people the importance of these subjects?
In Romans 2:21-24 Paul
writes, You,
therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a
man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do
you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your
boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? For “the name
of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” as it is written.
How can a Christian teach
that marital affairs are wrong if they are involved in one? Or how can you
condemn divorce if your marriage is headed in that direction?
This is why our private life
needs to mirror our public life. We can’t show the world one persona and live a
completely different one behind closed doors. The world may not see that
‘secret’ life but God does (Eccl. 12:14; Heb. 4:13).
Conclusion
Christ left us the example
of how we are to live our lives (1 Peter 2:21), we should live by His to be the
example to others. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11:1, Imitate me, just as I also imitate
Christ.
And again in 2 Thessalonians 3:9, not
because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you
should follow us.
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