We are one in Christ; let us be friends with one another; but let us never be friends with one another’s error. If I be wrong, rebuke me sternly; I can bear it, and bear it cheerfully; and if ye be wrong, expect the like measure from me, and neither peace nor parley with your mistakes.
Interpretation
True friendship involves honesty and correction, not just acceptance of faults.
This quote by Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the importance of holding one another accountable within friendships, especially in a spiritual context. It advocates for a balance where love and camaraderie exist alongside a commitment to truth, urging friends to support each other's growth by addressing mistakes rather than ignoring them for the sake of harmony.
In practice
During a community meeting discussing personal growth, this quote can illustrate the importance of honest feedback among friends.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the forest lifted the hair at Harry's brow. He knew that they would not tell him to go, that it would have to be his decision. "You'll stay with me?" "Until the very end," said James.
Every man has frequent grievances which only the solicitude of friendship will discover and remedy, and which would remain for ever unheeded in the mighty heap of human calamity, were it only surveyed by the eye of general benevolence equally attentive to every misery.
The crest and crowning of all good, life's final star, is Brotherhood.
Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.
Like a surgeon, friends cut you in order to heal you.
Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs,” sighed George, patting the heading of the map. “We owe them so much.” “Noble men, working tirelessly to help a new generation of law-breakers,” said Fred solemnly.
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