Life Together Quote #46

From Chapter Four, Ministry.

This will prove especially difficult where varying strength and weakness in faith are bound together in a fellowship. The weak must not judge the strong, the strong must not despise the weak. The weak must guard against pride, the strong against indifference. None must seek his own rights. If the strong person falls, the weak one must guard his heart against malicious joy at his downfall. If the weak one falls, the strong one must help him rise again in all kindness. The one needs as much patience as the other. "Woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up" (Eccles. 4:10). It is doubtless this bearing of another person in his freedom that the Scripture means when it speaks of "forbearing one another" (Col. 3:13). "Walk with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love" (Eph. 4:2).

Life Together Quote #42

From Chapter Four, Ministry.

In a Christian community everything depends upon whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain. Only when the smallest link is securely interlocked is the chain unbreakable. A community which allows unemployed members to exist within it will perish because of them. It will be well, therefore, if every member receives a definite task to perform for the community, that he may know in hours of doubt that he, too, is not useless and unusable. Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of the fellowship.