1 Peter 1:22-2:1 “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, ‘All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.’ And this is the word that was preached to you. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.”
Principle:Holy living means complete obedience to the Word of God and swearing off five factors that drag us back into unholiness.
Roget’s Thesaurus offers these synonyms for the five things that drag us into unholiness:
Malice = ill will, spite, evil intent, bitterness
Deceit = dishonest, deception, fraud
Hypocrisy = lip service, pretense, phoniness
Envy = covet, begrudge, jealousy
Slander = lies, smears, mudslinging, backbiting
Swearing off any one of these attitudes is easier said than done. It is so easy to slander. It may be something we learned in our childhood from our own family. It may seem humorous. It may make us feel better about our self to compare our strengths with another person’s weaknesses. We may discount it as a bad habit rather than vicious. Tongue control is more than overcoming a bad habit. It’s a conscious decision to stop doing something which separates us from God.
My grandfather was a preacher. In his retirement years we would sit at a dinner table after church and talk about this and that. One Sunday we got to talking about the pastor’s sermon which was, well, weak. My grandfather quietly got up from the table in the middle of the conversation and went to another room until that conversation was over. He came back and finished the meal without a word of reproach but we “got it.” Slander was not to be tolerated.
Thank you, Grandfather, for that practical lesson in holiness.
Swearing off slander is a choice. Choose holiness.
Discussion:
1. Does slander mean never saying anything bad about anyone?
2. What are the options if you violently disagree with somebody or if somebody needs correction?
