Take I Peter 5:3 at face value. “Be an example for the flock”. With that supposition in mind lets ask ourselves a few questions:
1. Should people under our care treat the local church like we do?
Here is the point, subjectivity can never win over objectivity. It IS all about what “IS”. Threatening to sound like a country song, don’t say you love me if you don’t. Don’t say you want what is best if you don’t. Don’t say you are trying harder if you don’t. Words matter and words that do not correspond to the reality they are projecting misdirect and miscommunicate.
The church is supposed to be the beacon of light to people wandering in the darkness with bloody thumbs and chagrinned foreheads. While the world screams, “there must be a better way,” the church is to be declaring, “We have a better way.”
