A L M A C I A S

BEING KIND, ONE TO ANOTHER

It is amazing how often the Lord saw the need for certain lessons to be taught to the people with whom He dealt. In the book of Luke, we find one such occasion, in which the Lord saw the need to teach a group of lawyers and Pharisees the importance of humility and kindness. The lack of humility and kindness has always been a problem among us all. At one time or another, we all have been guilty, perhaps, of being too proud or not showing kindness to others. In Luke 14 we find an incident related, in which the Lord had been invited to eat at the home of a Pharisee. As we study what happened here, we find that the Lord noticed immediately upon entering the house of the Pharisee that only certain people had been invited, and those were some fellow Pharisees and lawyers of the Law of Moses. The Lord realized that these people needed two lessons in particular ­ one on humility, and one on being kind to one another.

There was one man at the home of this Pharisee that would be suspect as to why he was there, because he suffered from the dropsy, and he stood before the Lord. Luke wrote by inspiration that the lawyers and the Pharisees were watching to see what the Lord would do, particularly concerning the sick man, as it was the Sabbath. We can conclude by what the Lord said to the lawyers and the Pharisees that He knew their thoughts and that their motives were not good. The Lord asked this group of men whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath day. They did not reply, and the Lord proceeded to heal the man. The Lord continued to teach those gathered that if one were invited to a wedding, he should not sit in the highest room lest a more honourable man were to come in afterward, and then the first man would be told to give his place to the other, thus putting the first man to shame. The Lord said this because He knew that these men had a problem with the lack of humility.

But the Lord had also noticed those who were present. Only lawyers and Pharisees, the Lord, and the sick man were there. These people had shown kindness only to certain ones, and not to all. This group of Pharisees and lawyers needed to learn that one is to be kind to all, not just to those who they considered to be in their own circle. To whom do we show kindness, and how are we doing with the problem of pride?