Helping Hands Not Pointing Fingers

Belinda passed this on to me today -- I think it's absolutely excellent...

Read Acts 18:24-28

None of us comes to the Christian faith completely formed. We are works in progress. How we progress depends much on how other Christians deal with us. This passage shows us how one man, Apollos, was able to overcome his deficiencies and become a fine Christian leader. And how Priscilla and Aquila were instrumental in that. Apollos was already eloquent and passionate and educated when they met him. Yet somehow he had some gaps in understanding. So they took him aside and privately filled in the gaps.

How easy it is to do something different. To take such a person down a peg or two in public, showing up their ignorance and allowing the critic to claim some sort of superiority. To mount a whispering campaign to undermine that person which would be a more discreet assassination. Or to take no action at all. To hide behind niceness, "don't want to make a fuss do we?" "Don't want to hurt anyone's feelings do we?" Such "niceness" is often timidity in disguise and does no good because it doesn't address a real issue.

Priscilla and Aquila took another option. They confronted Apollos with the problem but did so privately. No gossip, no public put down, no cowardly avoidance. They put him right in a way that did no damage but much good. Which is what we long for. Someone to move us on in the faith but without shaming us or demeaning us. Someone who cares enough to confront, but who confronts with discretion.

Apollos went on to be an effective church leader. Priscilla and Aquila didn't just see who Apollos was. They saw who he could become. Each of us needs others who will speak the truth in love to us that we might become who were made by God to be. We are not, after all, to be defined by our deficiencies, but by our potential in God.

Blessings
David Reay