Fitch, I appreciate the conviction and gentle nuance you bring here to this passage which has often been neglected or unkindly applied. Ironically, I just read this passage in my personal reading two days ago, and it reminded me of a minor clip from an interview I recently watched of Stanley Hauerwas that stuck in my head & heart. Basically (if I understood him correctly), he cited this passage to claim we don't have an option if believe we've been sinned against other than to apply this passage. The context was a claim that we can only, ever see our own personal sin (wrongs, deficiencies) as others point them out to us in loving community. We are THAT dependent on one-another. In other words, reading between the lines, I heard Hauerwas saying that, as followers of Jesus, we can no longer hide behind Proverbs 19:11 (... it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense...) as followers of Jesus. Perhaps again this could be an example from Jesus of, "you have heard it said..." This could have massive implications if we accepted and applied this as a discipleship mandate in our Christian communities. Any thoughts?
Fitch, I appreciate the conviction and gentle nuance you bring here to this passage which has often been neglected or unkindly applied. Ironically, I just read this passage in my personal reading two days ago, and it reminded me of a minor clip from an interview I recently watched of Stanley Hauerwas that stuck in my head & heart. Basically (if I understood him correctly), he cited this passage to claim we don't have an option if believe we've been sinned against other than to apply this passage. The context was a claim that we can only, ever see our own personal sin (wrongs, deficiencies) as others point them out to us in loving community. We are THAT dependent on one-another. In other words, reading between the lines, I heard Hauerwas saying that, as followers of Jesus, we can no longer hide behind Proverbs 19:11 (... it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense...) as followers of Jesus. Perhaps again this could be an example from Jesus of, "you have heard it said..." This could have massive implications if we accepted and applied this as a discipleship mandate in our Christian communities. Any thoughts?