Choosing Praise

Imagine this: You’re the head elder in a church that’s really on fire—growing, praising God, sharing the Word. One day some folks from a sister church move to the community and join your congregation. They fit right in. They’re strong in the faith and don’t mind working—just the sort of members every pastor loves.

Except …

You begin to notice little whispering groups forming in the lobby between services—groups that suddenly go silent when someone else approaches. It turns out that your new members have brought something with them: “new truth.”

New truth has taken many forms through the ages. When Martin Luther rediscovered salvation by faith, it was considered “new truth.” For that matter, when Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” His listeners considered it “new truth.” Yet others have claimed the same appellation for odd little quirks like “Real Christian men don’t have long hair,” “Real Christians don’t eat meat,” or even “Drums are of the Devil.”

So what do you do? These new members have Bible passages to back up their claim, and you don’t want to ignore it if it’s truly of God. But it’s just not clear that it is.

Finally, your pastor calls an elder’s meeting. But even after discussing the problem thoroughly, the answer isn’t clear. Eventually the group decides to send delegates, including you, to church headquarters to decide the issue.

Your group packs up and heads out. It’s a long road trip that will entail several days travel, but you’ve arranged to stay with some church brethren along the way.

Here’s the question: What do you talk about with those brethren?  

This may sound like a silly question, but think about it for a minute. You’re sitting down to dinner in your host’s home—perhaps a man you’ve known forever, a man you’ve probably even done some outreach with. You’re tired from the long, difficult trip. (Oh, did I forget to mention? Cars haven’t been invented yet—you have to walk the whole way.) Your blisters are wondering if the trip was even necessary, and you’re probably wishing the guy who started the controversy back home had just kept his big mouth shut.

Then this old friend hands you a warm bowl of lamb stew and says, “So, Paul, I hear you’re at Antioch these days. What’s going on up there? Anything interesting happening?

How do you respond? Do you take the opportunity to unburden to your friend? Maybe to drum up some support for your side of the controversy?

I think most of us would. We might say something like, “Oh, man—everything was going really great until some believers from Judea showed up. They’ve got this bug in their ear about circumcision, and now the whole church is riled up.”

Wouldn’t that be the natural thing to do?

But it’s not what Paul did. He never even mentioned the controversy that sent him trudging off to Jerusalem in the first place. He and his group only exposed that to the council of elders in Jerusalem (Acts 15:4). But as they traveled, they spent their time “describing the conversion of the Gentiles; and they caused great joy to all the brethren” (Acts 15:3, NKJV).

Instead of seeding doubt and dissension on their way to Jerusalem, Paul and his fellow travelers left a trail of joy. They chose the course Paul later recommended to other believers: “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4).

Now, some people seem to have a natural bent toward perennial cheerfulness, but I don’t think Paul was in that category. Philippians 4:11 tells us that he had to learn to be content in all situations. Maybe this was even part of the struggle he describes in Romans 7.

And that’s good news for those of us who don’t praise God as much as we should, as often we’d like, or to everyone we meet. If Paul learned to rejoice in everything everywhere, we can too.

“Every day I will bless You.

And I will praise Your name forever and ever” (Psalm 145:2)