Happy Families - Colossians 3:18-4:1

Reading: Colossians 3:18-4:1

A Typical Roman Family This week we move on from Rules for Holy living aimed at the individual, to look at rules for living in a Christian family. It is almost as difficult to describe a typical Roman family in the first century as it is to describe a typical English family in the 21st century. The Colossian church would have had a mixture of families from many different backgrounds, just as the Billericay church does today. So what was the Roman equivalent of '2.4 Children'? There would have been: Father The role of the father was very different to the role that fathers have today. The father was the head of the household. He had absolute authority over everything that happened in the household. Mother She was the subject of her husband. She had few rights, and could not divorce her husband except in the most extreme circumstances. Divorce would only be possible if, for example,if the husband caught leprosy. After giving birth she would take the new born and put it at her husbands feet. If he picked it up, the baby would live. If he didn't it would be taken away to die. Children Children were the property of their father and could be sold, or discarded as he saw fit. If sold they would be sold as slaves. They would most likely have had 6 Children, but only 3 would survive to adulthood. If the sons were grown up, their wives would be living in the house. Slaves There were not many slaves that had a life as good a Lurcio. (That's Frankie Howard from Up Pompeii, if you don't recognise him.) Slaves were usually prisoners of war. The Roman Empire was always fighting somewhere, and the prisoners were brought back to the centre of the empire and sold as slaves in various locations. This meant that slaves often came with useful skills, or from what we would now consider to be professional backgrounds. As a Roman, if you needed a teacher for your children you could buy a slave who had previously been a teacher somewhere else. Slave revolts were a relatively common occurrence as many slave were badly treated. It has been estimated that at the height of the Roman Empire up to 50% of the inhabitants were slaves. Think for a moment about the kind of world that Paul was writing in. It is almost impossible for us to understand the concept of owning another human being, or being owned by some else. By owning, I mean having the power of life and death, and by being owned I mean that your life depends entirely on your master.

God's Transformational Instructions Jesus is referred to as Lord six times in this short passage, and Master once. When we chose to become Christians and accept Jesus as our Lord we put ourselves under His authority. If we are serious about living God's way – living under the authority of Christ, then it WILL change the way we live. Now lets read the scripture again as we try to focus our minds on the type of life that we might have lead in 1st century Rome: Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favour, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favouritism. Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven. These instructions are so radically different from the way society operated at the time it id difficult for us to believe that they could ever have taken hold.

Obligation – Authority Notice that in each of the pairs Paul speaks firstly to the person with the obligation, and secondly to the person with the authority. The implication being that if you are carrying out your obligations it is easier for the person in authority to behave as they should. Notice also that each obligation as it is mentioned is in some way linked to your faith in Christ. Wives submit (as it is fitting in the Lord), husbands love Children Obey (because it pleases the Lord), Fathers encourage (or at least don't discourage) Slaves Obey and work honestly (they are serving the Lord) – Masters treat them fairly – because they too have a master. I'm now going to look at each of the roles in turn, but don't switch off while I'm talking about a role that you can't take. If you can't take the role, you can be on the other side of it. Our obligation – all of us – is to please the Lord.

Wives Gen 2:18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Wives, before you as 21st century women get upset at what Paul is saying, lets try to take a look at just exactly what he is saying. It is important that we don't get stuck on the first word, as some do. Submission is 'to your husband' not 'to any male'. Chambers dictionary says submit means “to surrender; to give in, especially to the wishes or control of another person; to stop resisting them”. It comes from the Latin 'sub' meaning under and mittere meaning 'let go, send'. It has the meaning “refer to another for consideration”. Submission places no value on the person who is submitting, it does not imply that they are in any way inferior, and it is not slavery. So it seems to me that Paul is saying that the wife should refer to her husband for consideration anything that she thinks will materially affect their lives together. That means that the leadership of the family is the Husbands responsibility, not the wives. Gods model for all of our lives is authority and submission, without this approach there will be no leadership and chaos will result.

Children The command here is quite simple 'Obey'. In Ephesians it is slightly more complex. Eph 6:2-3 "Honor your father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise— "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. How this command is interpreted really depends on the age of the Children. You would not expect older children to have to be given simple commands that young children are given. The message to Children though is 'obey', because that's what God wants from all His children. Children cannot see the point of view of their parents, as Mark Twain noted “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

Slaves Largely due to Christianity there are no legally owned slaves in the world today. As Paul was writing though, the entire society was built on the use of Slaves. I have already noted that about half of the people in the Roman Empire were slaves. There are some other instructions to Slaves that are worth a look: 1 Peter 2:18 – Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, the good and considerate, and also to the harsh. 1 Tim 6:2 – Serve believing masters better than non-believing ones. Titus 2:9-10 try to please them; don't talk back; don't steal from them, show you can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive. The nearest we can get to understanding the meaning of this is to look at how what is said might affect our employment. Work is worship we heard last week. We work for Christ first, and the boss second. We do the job that the boss has given us to do, but we do it for Christ. We do not have to turn our workplace into our own personal mission field, our responsibility is to get the job done and done well. In doing that we demonstrate our faith in Christ – whatever sort of boss we have. Many years ago I had an interview with a mainframe support company as one of their operating system experts, if I had been offered the job I would have been working for this company at various other companies. I was asked what I would do if I was given trivial work to do. I don't remember my answer. What they were looking for was that I would do as I was asked, but would tell them and my management that the work they were giving me was not the work they were supposed to be giving me. The key thing here for today is that I should do as I was asked by the people asking. Whatever work you are asked to do – do it and do it to the best of your ability. That way you can bring glory to God. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote: "Smiting an anvil, sawing a beam, white-washing a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in his grace you do it as your duty." William McDonald has written that Christian slaves brought a higher price in the slave market in the first century. The same is said of Christians in Soviet Russia. Christians were known for their honesty and their hard work. As a result many employers protected them and kept quiet about their employees activities. Even today we can have an effect on the workplace by being honest and hard working, and may well have gained the respect of people there for our efforts.

Husbands Most of the instructions in this passage relate to the men who are Husbands, Fathers and Slave Masters (or Managers in out case). The story is told of a father of 5 who came home with a toy, he summoned his children and asked which one should be given the present. "Who is the most obedient, never talks back to mum and does every thing he or she is told to do?" He inquired. There was silence as the children looked around at each other, and then a chorus of voices rang out: "you play with it daddy!" Paul recognised God's intention that the man should be the Leader in the household. Many of the problems that we have in our society today are the result of men not understanding the role of leader, or not being permitted to perform it. There are few, if any, good public role models of the Husband / Father leader. The word that is translated love originally meant 'love of a spouse or family, or love of an activity'. It is not romantic or sexual love. Roman marriages were arranged marriages, and did not involve the couple choosing each other. It was used by early Christians to describe God's sacrificial love in Christ for His human family. The word Husband replaced the old English word wer which means married man, husband means head householder. Husbandry comes from husband, and relates to peasant farmers providing for their families. In Hebrews 12 in a section about discipline it says in verse 15 “See to it that no-one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” This I think, sums up the challenge for Husbands and Fathers, as they seek to model Christ to their families.

Fathers A little girl once said to her mother, “Mummy, if Father Christmas brings our presents, and God gives us our daily bread, and the Prime Minister gives us Social Security, why do we keep daddy around?” Its a good question. When we listen to our politicians trying to describe a family in the recent debate on supporting marriage, we hear all the old messages about not disadvantaging people who live in one parent families. No-one seems able to say that God's design is the best. That a man should be a husband of one wife for life and should be the leader of his family. Even though there is some evidence to suggest that children do better in this model. Men, if you're doing the job properly and to the best of your ability a lot is asked of you. You must find time for God, your wife, your children, your work and your self. A father had three very active boys. One summer evening, he was playing cops and robbers in the back garden after dinner. One of the boys "shot" his father and yelled, "Bang! You’re dead!" He slumped to the ground and when he didn’t get up straight away, a neighbour ran over to see if he had been hurt in the fall. When the neighbour bent over, the overworked father opened one eye and said, "Shhh! Don’t give me away. It’s the only chance I’ve had to rest all day." Fathers, you have to be ready to be the ultimate place of appeal for your children. There used to be a saying “Wait 'till you father gets home!” Then maybe a request would have to be denied, or some punishment given. A little girl was being punished by eating alone in the corner of the dining room. The family paid no attention to her until they heard her pray: “I thank You, Lord, for preparing a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” You have to be ready to deal with the consequences of any punishments you might apply too. Through all this you must remain a Dad, and not become a Dictator. There's more at stake than just your family: Confucius said, “the strength of a nation is derived from the integrity of its homes.”

Masters (Slave Owners) To follow these instructions in the Roman world would have been difficult. Being fair to slaves was not considered. Nothing was considered about slaves except that they do their work. They were the equivalent of our machines, and disposed of as easily as a broken washing machine. Being fair would be seen as laughable, and a threat to your credibility. Nevertheless many Christians did treat their slaves reasonably and even better than that. As a result the practice of owning slaves in a Christian Roman Empire reduced to such an extent that the trade was undermined. Managers must strive for fairness in the workplace. That means fair pay for all, but more than that it means that employees should be treated with respect, they are after all making money for the company in one way or another. It does not mean that standards can be allowed to slip, once again we as managers are to do our job well, and expect the same from those we manage.

Conclusion All that I have been talking about today can be summed up in the Love of Christ or the Grace of God. It requires us to act in the same way. That requires us being ready to forgive. At a conference with their wives, two businessmen who had been room mates at university crossed paths. They sat in the bar all night talking. They knew they would be in trouble with their wives. The next day they happened to see each other. "What did your wife think?" "I walked in the door and my wife got historical." "Don’t you mean hysterical?" "No, historical. She told me everything I ever did wrong." Whether our role is as Father, Husband, Child, Mother or Wife none of us will fill it perfectly, neither will we ever meet anyone who will fill the other matching half perfectly. We must be ready to forgive each other and ourselves for our failings, just as God has forgiven us. Christianity has had an amazing effect on society over the last 20 centuries. Each small change has been caused by people - individuals like us - determining to follow God's way of living their lives, and slowly others have followed, until we have moved from seeing women as possessions to seeing women as partners, from seeing children as objects to seeing children as our future, from seeing slaves as non-human to seeing everyone as equal. But we are not perfect yet...

Free FLV Converter ** Warning **

It's very easy to capture video's from Youtube using FireFox and the Flashgot add-on. Now we have a decent projector, I can use video clips, but playing .FLV's (Flash Video's) is not the easiest thing to to.  For personal use VLC is great, but these have to go on the secondary screen and the controls have to be somewhere else.  I wanted something to convert the FLV's to something more useful, something my projections software has a chance of playing.  I admit, this was the first thing I found.

It installed with a Toolbar "Dealio" - but this one insists on installing and doesn't give you the option not to.  OK, as soon as the install was finished, I uninstalled it.  I'm not sure if its a problem (malware) or not (google search results), but I don't want it simply because I am forced to have it.  Well OK, I want the free software, but there are other methods of supporting free software.  I downloaded it from CNET - a site I have come to trust, but one which I will be treating with much greater caution that previously.

Here's why:  Free FLV Converter (or was it Dealio) also installed a Browser Helper Object (BHO) called SearchSettings.dll and ApplicationUpdate.dll - which I can't find much on..I have Scotty keeping watch - nothing much gets past him.  Prevention is better than cure, so when he barked, I did not allow the change, and began to investigate.  The uninstalls seemed to remove the offending programs, but there will be a Spybot and Ad-Aware scan later - just to be certain.


Free FLV Converter itself is simple to use, here are some results for just one file. The source file size is 3237Kb:

To Type	File Size (Kb)	Windows Media Player	VLC
avi	6546	Video OK, no sound	Video and sound OK
mp4	10336	Video and sound OK	Video and sound OK
wmv	6886	Video OK, no sound	Video and sound OK

I have Windows Vista with all the latest updates from Microsoft.

Rules for Holy living part 2 - new clothes

Reading: Col 3:12.
Col 3:12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Col 3:13 Bear with each other x and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Col 3:14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Rules for Holy living part 2 New Clothes
Reminders of part 1
Margaret spoke to us last week and covered the first part of Paul's instructions to the Colossians. In case you weren't here or like me your memory isn't that good lets look back and see what Paul was saying. Take a look back at verse 1 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above” Paul's concern is to get the focus of the Colossians off the world and its day-to-day problems, and on to Christ and their time with him in eternity. Eternity, obviously goes on forever, but for us it has a start – that's the moment we accept Christ as our saviour. So we come to eternal life with a life partly lived, but lived without the right instructions. Paul calls these old habits your 'earthly nature' and in verse 5 goes on to give some examples of just what the earthly nature consists of “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” and in verse 8 and 9 “anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” and “Do not lie to each other”.
All these thing he says must be “put to death”; you must “rid yourselves of them”.
New clothes as a response to God.
At the start of the passage we had read to us today, Paul says we are “God's chosen people”. Think about it for a minute. The creator of the universe and all that it contains looked into your spirit and saw something. He didn't look at your CV and check your skill set, or your exam results to see if you'd reach the grade, or your good works to see how you were helping those in need, or your evil ways and say they were just too bad. He looked right into you and said “Yes, I'll take you”. That simple decision that God made – made you holy – set you apart for God, dedicated to Him. Because you now belong to God you are dearly loved, so dearly loved that He had already sent His son to die in your place so that your evil ways - those ways we looked at in verses 8 and 9 do not lead to your own death.
Qualities of the new Clothes
Put off your old self, and put on your new self, we are told back in verse 10
Then in verse 12 & 13 we get a description of the new self that Paul's wants us to wear.
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
A Change of Clothes?
I wonder if you bought a change of clothes with you this morning. Probably not. I did though. I have to change into the uniform of my office to do my job. Much like a policeman or a paramedic. Putting on my robes changes me. Its not just that I have to be careful how I walk or I might trip over, although walking more slowly and carefully does have an effect. Really it is more subtle. It tells me that I am 'in character' as an actor would say. It makes me think more carefully about what I say and how I say it. It makes me a different person – more focussed on the things above.
It changes the way people see me too. Occasionally people will say 'nice sermon vicar'. My reaction inside is to have a rant about not being ordained and not being a vicar, and explaining in great, and probably very boring detail just exactly what the ministry of a reader is. A more helpful reaction would be to ignore the misidentification and ask them what they liked about the sermon, but I usually just manage a smile and thank you.
How does changing your clothes affect you? Do you behave differently when you are dressed up to go out, than you do when you are at home relaxing. Do you behave differently when you are dressed for working in the garden, than when you are dressed to attend a wedding?
Paul's new Christian suit
Lets take a look at what the new clothes Paul has in mind look like.
Compassion
In Matthew 9:36 after Jesus has bee teaching and healing people it says “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
Webster's dictionary says compassion means “sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it”.
Compassion:
One day a student asked anthropologist Margaret Mead for the earliest sign of civilization in a given culture. He expected the answer to be a clay pot or perhaps a fish hook or grinding stone. Her answer was "a healed femur." Mead explained that no healed femurs are found where the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, reigns. A healed femur shows that someone cared. Someone had to do that injured person's hunting and gathering until the leg healed. The evidence of compassion is the first sign of civilization. -- R. Wayne Willis Louisville, Kentucky
In recent years we mainly hear the word 'compassion' in the phrase 'compassion fatigue'. It defines a condition where there is so much suffering that the desire to relieve it is overwhelmed. Thankfully I haven't heard the expression in relation to the earthquake in Haiti. There will be a retiring collection this morning to help the survivors of the earthquake. The Disasters Emergency committee collects money and coordinates emergency aid. If you contribute there you contribution can benefit from gift aided. Please consider your response how you are going to show compassion in this instance. I heard a woman on the radio – I think she was from the American embassy, which is still standing. She sounded really frightened saying she didn't know when they would be able to go out, or how they would get food or water. That really brought home to me the scale of the disaster. Of course it's really the people on the outside we have to worry about. They need clean water, food and shelter, or many many more of them will become ill and die.
http://elbourne.org/sermons/index.mv?illustration+4698
Kindness
Kindness is shown by smaller actions that are designed to make people feel comfortable and accepted rather than to meet a specific and urgent need.
Rhodes Scholarship
British statesman and financier Cecil Rhodes, whose fortune was used to endow the world-famous Rhodes Scholarships, was a stickler for correct dress—but apparently not at the expense of someone else’s feelings. A young man invited to dine with Rhodes arrived by train and had to go directly to Rhodes’s home in his travel-stained clothes. Once there he was appalled to find the other guests already assembled, wearing full evening dress. After what seemed a long time Rhodes appeared, in a shabby old blue suit. Later the young man learned that his host had been dressed in evening clothes, but put on the old suit when he heard of his young guest’s dilemma.
Today in the Word, February, 1991, p. 10
http://elbourne.org/sermons/index.mv?illustration+4698
Humility
Humility is “not being proud or haughty; not being arrogant or assertive” according to Webster's dictionary. Its a very negative definition.
Winston Churchill was once asked, “Doesn’t it thrill you to know that every time you make a speech, the hall is packed to overflowing?”
“It’s quite flattering,” replied Sir Winston. “But whenever I feel that way, I always remember that if instead of making a political speech I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big.”
Norman McGowan, My Years With Winston Churchill, Souvenir Press, London.
http://bible.org/node/10552
If we are to define humility in a more positive way we would say that it is having a right view before God of your true worth and significance in relation to those around you. Remember what Paul said in verse 11: “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”
Barbarians covered people that did not speak greek, but were still considered uncivilised by the Jews.
Scythians were a race from southern Russia. They were known for their brutality.
Meekness
Gentleness is more traditionally translated as meekness and that is closer to the sense of the passage.
According to Bill Farmer, J. Upton Dickson was a fun-loving fellow who said he was writing a book entitled Cower Power. He also founded a group of submissive people. It was called "Dependent Organization Of Really Meek And Timid Souls -- if there are no objections." or DOORMATS. Their motto was: "The meek shall inherit the earth -- if that's okay with everybody."
A.W. Tozer in his book “The pursuit of God” wrote “The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values. He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own. Then the righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father. He is willing to wait for that day.
In the meantime he will have attained a place of soul rest. As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. The old struggle to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which meekness brings.”
http://www.theboc.com/freestuff/awtozer/books/the_pursuit_of_god/meekness_and_rest.html
Patience
Patience in this passage is not about being patient with God, or waiting patiently through the dark days of winter for your summer holiday in the sun. This is about being patient with people. This is about not reacting and writing people off when they are big a bit of an idiot.
Barnabus was patient with his cousin John Mark, when Paul had given upon him after he left them part way through a mission. Barnabus wanted to give him a second chance. There was a serious disagreement. As a result Barnabus went one way and Paul the other. You can read the story in Acts chapters 13 to 15. Years later Paul asks for John Mark to be sent to him, so Barnabus' patience clearly worked. We all need a second chance from time to time. Some of us need third and fourth chances as well. If people are not patient with us that will not be possible. This quality is linked to the next two.
Forgiveness
If patience deals with the inconsiderate, careless and thoughtless things that we do that cause misunderstandings. Forgiveness deals with the offensive that we give. Forgiveness applies when people tell lies about you, steal from you or give serious offence in other ways.
Act justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with your God it says in Micah 6:8. You may recognise that, it is included in our Holy communion liturgy. It means that we should apply justice to our own actions, and mercy to the actions of others.
We forgive because God first forgave us. If we do not forgive we will always be looking for some way to get back at the person who has offended us, so forgiveness has real benefits too us as these monkeys demonstrate.
Letting Go of Offences
Natives in Africa capture monkeys by setting up cages and placing bait inside. The bait can be anything a monkey would want, such as food or an unusual object. The monkeys are lured to the cages but are too smart to actually go inside. Instead, they reach through the bars, grab the bait, and try to pull it out. Because the object is too large to go through the bars, the only way the monkey can get away is to drop the bait. But monkeys refuse to let go. They kick and squeal but keep holding on. They stay trapped in bondage because they refuse to let go of the bait.
(Kent Crockett, I Once Was Blind But Now I Squint, Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2004, 104-105)
http://www.kentcrockett.com/cgi-bin/illustrations/index.cgi?topic=Forgiving%20Others
Love
Finally, Love which brings all our actions relating to other people together. Paul describes Love to the Corinthian Church like this:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Love the unselfish interest in someone else's well being is the overall look of the new clothes that Paul is asking us to wear on our Characters. It encompasses all I have talked about and much more. It is demonstrated by God in all his dealings with us, whether that's in our conversion, our life in this world, or eternity spent in heaven.
All we have to do is put it on.
Conclusion
Once you have changed into your new clothes they will last for all eternity. When you first put them they looked lovely and you were very pleased with them I'm sure. After a while they may feel a bit strange, you may wonder how you ever got into them. Perhaps in the same way that some of us wonder how we ever got into our wedding clothes. That is because we have grown larger since we were married. For our new Christian clothes its not so much an issue of growing out of them as growing into them.
As we put off our bad habits (monks wear habits by the way, and the word comes from 13th century French and meant “condition, demeanour, appearance, dress”)
They must be replaced by new ones, otherwise like evicted demons they will return
Luke 11:24"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first."
If we haven't succeeded in replacing our old bad ways with new good ways then staying as a Christian will get harder and harder.
Just as paramedics, policemen and readers learn more about how to do their jobs once they have the uniform on, than they ever did in training, so it is with Christians. If the skills and habits are not practised they will not grow.
Compassion – relieving someone else's suffering
Kindness – consideration for someone's feeling and needs
Humility – a reasonable view of ourselves, so we have a reasonable view of others
Meekness – the strength of character to know that mostly its not profitable to fight back
Patience – giving everyone a second, third, or seventieth chance
Forgiveness – not holding on to the hurt that offences cause and allowing the relationship to be restored.
and
Love – which bids all of these new qualities together
OK, so stand up, take a walk over to the mirror, how do you look? More like Christ than last tie you looked?