Editor’s Note: I once again welcome Molly Stouffer as guest blogger. Molly is from Hagerstown, MD, studying Pastoral Ministries at Lancaster Bible College.
When you’re watching TV and a commercial comes on, do you change the channel or wait for the show to come back on? When you’re watching a YouTube video and there is an ad before it, do you skip the ad as soon as those grueling 5 seconds are up, or do you wait? When you’re in a conversation with someone and they begin to stutter, do you wait for them to finish their thought or does your mind begin to wander?
Your answers to these questions can give you a sense of your ability to be patient.
We’ve been studying a selections of verses about brotherly love in 1 Thessalonians chapters 4 and 5. While Paul encourages the Thessalonians to encourage the weak (see previous post), he also says to be patient with everyone. Paul could have said be patient with one another, in keeping with the theme of brotherly love and encouragement. But no, Paul says be patient with everybody.
Paul is telling the Christians that they are to extend patience to every single person on the earth. Regardless of their standing in society, regardless of their faith, regardless of their attitude, regardless of the fact if they even deserve our patience. We are called to be patient.
It’s not just patience when it is easy for us, or convenient for our time, it’s all people at any time. How we react in the little mundane moments is a deeper reflection of our heart. How we can treat others in small interactions reveals our patience.
But when we take a step back from patience for a moment and look at the whole of what we’re talking about this week, which is brotherly love, it can almost seem like patience feels a bit out of place. What does patience have to do with love and encouragement?
In Galatians 5:22-23, we read a very familiar passage, the Fruit of the Spirit. And the first of the fruits listed? It’s apples. No, I’m just kidding, it’s love. That’s what we’re talking about this week, a love that’s brotherly and familiar. What gets listed just three fruits later? Patience.
In Galatians, Paul is connecting love and patience to be a fruit of the Spirit. Why this connection is so important to make is that these are natural results of being filled with the Spirit. Paul is reminding the Christians that they are to people who have love that is evident in their lives. Because they live in the Spirit, they live and they love, as a result, they should also be patient people. Love and patience are a natural response of being a person filled with the Spirit.
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 