The Cover up...

Today I posted a scripture from our One Year Bible reading:

He who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends. Prov 17:9

At first glance it would seem that this scripture is encouraging us that if we see someone do something wrong, we're supposed to sweep it under the rug.  Hide it.  Not talk about it.

Now obviously if WE do something wrong, of course we're going to hide it. Well, maybe we act like we wouldn't hide it, but human nature and 50 years on this planet have shown me that everyone hides their own transgressions.  But when we someone else 'transgresses', we'll that's altogether different, isn't it?  I mean, aren't we supposed to expose darkness?  Eph 5 says it right here:

For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.  -- Eph 5:12-13

But there is another thought here - that perhaps the things that are exposed are the things that God exposes, not the things that we decide need to be exposed in the lives of others. 

To me the point of this proverb is to be a guide for our relationships with one another, and instead of looking at each others faults, we should always seek to love and bless one another, and to even overlook each others faults. 

In other words, if I see a fault in your life, it's better that I not point it out, but let the Lord and you work that out in your life.  And the worst thing I can do is to mention it to another person, because now I have tainted that persons perspective of you - FOREVER. Words cannot be taken back.  Once they are planted in a persons mind, they remain.

Perhaps that is why Paul encouraged us to love one another, and told us that love "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Cor 13:7).

We would all do well to overlook the faults we see in others, and ask the Lord to help us love one another, in spite of our faults.

Pastor Clay