Philanswers: On being written up....

A dear friend of mine recently alerted me of an article in a brotherhood periodical, which carried my name. The author, whom I do not know, apparently had done a lot of research on me in order to criticize the Spiritual Sword and Alan Highers for allowing me to write. I was placed in his company and Dan Winkler's (my dear brother since our days at OCC in the early 70s). If this is a reason for guilt, then I gladly give my allegiance to both.

As I mentioned, I do not know the author of the article. He certainly did not honor me with a phone call to make sure that his facts were correct. He did not love me enough to rebuke me privately first for my error. He did not care enough for my soul, Alan's soul, or Dan's soul to speak to any of us before he wrote an article that went nationwide.

As to his charges against me over the Christian Chronicle article, I have answered them in earlier posts to this blog. He does not seem to realize that I don't fellowship these brethren. You'd think by my calling them brothers that I endorsed their use of the instrument! This is not judging with righteous judgment.

I was criticized for endorsing false teachers because the website (www.God-answers.org) had a link to a site where false teachers sometimes write. My critic did not bother to note the obvious disclaimer evident on the link. Such criticism is either out of ignorance or out of careless research. In either case the criticism was patently false.

When people write others up unfairly, they speak more about the character of their own heart than the people they criticize. When the Pharisees condemned Jesus for not washing his hands (according to their man-made traditions), He spoke of the mouth revealing what was in the heart (Matt. 15:1-20).

When tempted to speak negatively of another, let us ask: