Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Wisdom from Proverbs”
Our Bible verse for today: “Drive out a mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended.” Proverbs 22:10 (NIV)
Our thought for today: “Don’t be that guy!”
In Proverbs 22:10 Solomon writes about a person he refers to as a “mocker”. Other translations use the term “scoffer”. The term that comes to my mind is “obnoxious knucklehead”. In short, we’re talking about the mouthy troublemaker. There are many variations of the type.
The most common form of the mocker is the Bart Simpson kind of person, one who is snarky and thinks they’re being clever by making snide remarks and cruel jokes. They pretend to be “just having fun” but they obviously enjoy poking people in the eye and cutting people down with their remarks. Almost always they end it with the phrase “just kidding”. But of course, they weren’t.
Another rendition of Solomon’s mocker, and one that is sometimes found in churches, is the hyper-critical person who evidently thinks criticism is a spiritual gift and that their roll in the church is to find fault with everything and everyone. They’re determined to get everyone else straightened out (often the pastor). Such people are critical of other people’s suggestions, they always believe that they have a better idea, and basically they just constantly rain on everyone’s parade.
What does Solomon instruct us to do with such people? “Drive them out.” He says that if you drive them out then “out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended.”
Now I would caution that we shouldn’t be too quick to drive people out. We have to try to work with them first. For our part we must be patient and prayerful. We should attempt to discuss the behavior with the person and try to get them to stop it. In the churches I’ve been the pastor of I have had times when a hyper-critical person actually had good intentions, they were just going about it the wrong way. They honestly thought they had a gift for detecting flaws in people and processes and they were sure they were uniquely qualified to point out better ways of doing things. And, sometimes, on some occasions, they were right about an issue. So we do need to be patient and try to work with people.
But once a person becomes a thorn in the side of the group, and their continuous mocking or criticism or fault-finding becomes a festering irritant, action has to be taken. This is especially true in a church setting. A church fellowship is a delicate thing – it has to be handled gently and it has to be protected. As Pastor John Maxwell once observed, “Sometimes we grow by subtraction.” What he meant was that sometimes making a person leave actually results in improved health for a congregation and you end up better off for the loss.
A contentious person is a problem for any group so I urge you: “Don’t be that guy!”
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 