Posted by BWSmith on Tuesday, 3 February 1998, at 9:38 a.m.
Going back to Genesis 4 -- interestingly titled in an NIV Study Bible as "The Beginnings of Civilization" -- Two brothers and one attitude problem. Very sobering story -- the end of anger is murder, either by deed or thought (Matthew 5:21-22) God takes our attitudes more seriously than we do, I regret to admit.
Question to pose to squabblers is "Are we our brother's keepers?"
Good verses that Kate suggested, and I am printing portions of them that PRICKED my heart, for any who are reading this post and are in a hurry because civil war may have broken out around your dining room table:
James 4:1-10
What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? . . . And you are envious and cannot obtain; {so} you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend {it} on your pleasures. . .
Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. . . Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
I Jn 3:10
By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, {who} was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother's were righteous.
. . . He who does not love abides in death. . . everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him . . . But whoever has the world's goods, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. . . Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
1 Cor 13:4-7
Love is patient, love is kind, {and} is not jealous; love does not brag {and} is not arrogant,
does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong {suffered,} does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
May God bless our homes with the peace that passes understanding.
BWSmith