By: Cordell Holloway, The Way I See It

In a previous article we discussed the Prodigal Son and his leaving home and compared him to people leaving the church. There is another character in the story. He is the older son. He knew how to be a son but he didn’t have any idea about how to be a brother.

If the jealousy and judgementalism he showed toward his brother is anything to go by it is no wonder the younger son left home in the first place.

Paul says, “Let us not therefore, judge one another anymore: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.”

Again the Bible says in I John 2, “He that loveth his brother abidith in the light, and there is no occasions of stumbling in him.” Do your actions and attitudes strengthen others or cause them to fall? Have you ever read about Diotrephes, who loved to have the preeminence among man.

The writer continues “Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds which he does, prating against us with malicious words. And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church.” Third John verses 9 and 10.

John says of him “he who does evil has not seen God” (verse 11). Only eternity will reveal how many people have been driven from the church by critical, callous, power hungry so called Christians. Make sure you are not one of the them and that’s the way I see it for another week.

Cordell Holloway is a retired Church of Christ minister and can be reached at any time by calling (706) 657-8521 or by writing him at 5 Valley Estates Dr., Trenton, GA 30752.