1 Corinthians 16:13-14: Courage Somebody Else Arranges

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.

1 Corinthians 16:13-14 (NIV)

Courage Somebody Else Arranges

She is the newest one on the trail crew, so she brings the fuel cans in from the gate while the others carry the saws. Half a mile of that and her hands are done for the morning. She is afraid of the chainsaw and has not said so to the crew, and the crew leader has already put her on the uphill side of the first tree.

Those four short orders come at the end of a letter to Corinth, in among travel plans and names and greetings. The church they came to had been splitting into parties over which teacher it belonged to. Timothy was on his way there as well, a young man the others were told to protect. The instruction about him goes to everybody except him. They were to see to it that he had nothing to fear while he was with them.

So be courageous is said to a congregation that has just been handed the job of taking the fear out of one man’s visit. The courage is asked of all of them at once, and part of it is the courage you arrange for somebody else before he gets there. Nobody told Timothy to toughen up on his own time.

Timothy still had to make the trip. The arrangements were made over his head and he had to walk into them, into a church that had been arguing about whose teacher it belonged to. Being carried costs something too. She asked at the gate whether one of the others should take the uphill side, and the crew leader said no.

Paul puts do everything in love under the other four. A person can stand firm in a way that costs the people standing next to him, and can be on guard in a way that turns everyone in the building into the threat. Love rules out both.

At the first tree the crew leader looks back at her and says, “Stay where I can see your boots.”