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Proverbs 17:27-28
New American Standard Bible (NASB) 27 He who restrains his words [a]has knowledge, And he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. 28 Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; When he closes his lips, he is considered prudent.
Footnotes: Proverbs 17:27 Lit knows New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Last Sunday with the sermon at church, the Lead Pastor stated (paraphrased) that persons tend not to think, make decisions and act based on reason, objectively, but tend to think, make decisions and act based on emotions, subjectively. I agree that this is true, generally, speaking.
Recent events make this evident once again.
I am not going to disclose many details.
I also, by the way, do not claim to have a perfectly, rational, reasonable mind that is always objective when it should be. I am tainted by sin (Romans 1-3).
There are subjective sides of issues, but idealistically it should not damage objectivity.
I do have a highly-trained (in my academic fields), active, objective mind, that is sinful and finite.
Basically, presently in a group there was a specific problem with a fellow person. He and I are definite Christian believers.
To be more specific it was a problem related to him, more so than a problem with him directly as a person.
The person was oblivious to the problem that the others and I had to something related with this person.
I had with humour attempted to to mention the problem, to perhaps soften it as an issue, but it was ignored.
Eventually, from this group leader an order was made via email to basically change circumstances that would end all like problems that could occur with any person and end the specific problem related to this person.
I, trying to show Christian love (John 15, Mark 12, Matthew 15) by email warned this fellow Christian and friend of the email command before he would have the opportunity to read it, in order to make certain changes, as soon as possible in order to end the related problem.
In order to help his standing with the group.
This fellow Christian followed my advice and the email order; but now he is angry and offended with me and is denying completely that there was ever any problem, ever any issue.
The reasoning being because the circumstances are now changed and the problem non-existent; therefore there was not a problem previously.
But, without going into details, I can simply state that there is not a problem now that the email directive was followed but there was a problem previously.
If there was not a problem the email command from the group leader would not have occurred. I know this not only empirically by experiencing the problem, but also by discussing the matter with the leader and others involved.
But, the fellow Christian, when I tried to explain my position and the position of the group, claimed that if I did not stop explaining the problem that had been related to him, that I risked harassment.
So, I stopped.
That is the end of the matter.
I see this type of overly emotional, overly subjective approach to problems at times offline and online in dialogue that sometimes becomes disputes.
Communication ends because a person does not want to risk his/her intellectual/philosophical position and so all dialogue ends.
This is often true when there is anger involved by the offended party.
Perhaps at times there is fear of perhaps having to admit something, that one does not want to admit.
There is not an agreement in truth. Which is unfortunate when persons are in Christ.
This person reached out to family which predictably supported, but that does not deal with the objectivity or not of the problem, or the position, does it?
From my perspective I need to simply, as noted, see the issue as ended.
If the friendship is less, so be it. Frankly, anyone that states I might be harassing them is a very questionable friend.
This definition of harassment was simply my side of the story as one trying to be a Christian friend.
Where is the New Testament love toward me? Limited at best.
Forgiveness is claimed for the supposed offense but my position was not even considered.
When we honestly think about it, in heated debates, is this type of harassment accusation not sometimes the case?
I sometimes am challenged and disagree with critiques. But unlike with this first scenario, I do attempt to listen and I do ponder and pray on the criticisms.
Sometimes I receive an apology and have apologized my share of times as well in situations.
So, I shall follow Proverbs 17: 27-28, and need to continually learn when to keep silent and when to speak with a cool head.
Live and learn.
