Let Us Consider One Another
Let Us Consider One Another
And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, - Hebrews 10:24 (CSB)
This is one of my favorite verses in the New Testament — although, I used to understand it very differently because of the translation in which I’d first learned the verse.
See, a number of translations (including the ESV and the NIV) arrange the words a bit differently, placing the emphasis on considering ways that we can encourage one another to acts of love and good works.
That’s how I’d first read the verse, and so, I’d taken it to mean that I was supposed to be coming up with creative ways or opportunities (or even incentives, perhaps) to motivate other Christians to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our world.
It made sense to me. Except that I wasn’t very good at it.
Sure, I could dream up creative ways and opportunities to do good and to spread the love of Jesus, but I always struggled with convincing other people to help me bring those ideas to life. Most of my Christian friends were already serving the community in other ways, and they didn’t necessarily need a new platform or program to help them do that. Not to mention, the Christian friends I was trying to convince to join me in starting something new didn’t necessarily feel called to do ministry the same way I did.
Try as I might, I could never seem to live out Hebrews 10:24 successfully.
Then one day, I read Hebrews 10:24 in the Christian Standard Bible, and I noticed that rather than placing the emphasis on considering ways that we can encourage one another to acts of love and good works, it placed the emphasis on considering one another, so that we can discern how best to encourage them to acts of love and good works. A little further digging uncovered that several other translations (including the KJV, NKJV, and ASV) used similar wording.
So which understanding is the better one? I think the latter probably conveys more accurately what the writer of Hebrews originally meant, because this approach requires intentional relationship building and intimate knowledge of others. In other words, it requires living in meaningful, purposeful community with other Christians, which as it turns out, is what the very next verse implores us not to forsake (Hebrews 10:25).
You and I are called to live in community with other Christians. But this isn’t only so that we can be surrounded by like-minded individuals on common mission. Rather, it’s so that we can help one another accomplish that mission in our individual ways by allowing God to use us to help bring out His best in others!
How can we do this? It’s simple. We are made able to do this by considering one another.
As we spend time with others, we have the opportunity to learn about them.
Consider this: There’s probably at least one person in your life whom you almost know better than you know yourself, because you’ve spent so much time with them and learning about them. You’ve seen them at their best and their worst. You know their strengths and their weaknesses — probably even better than they do. You know what’s happening in their life, what they’re going through right now, and what they’ve already been through. And if they’re a fellow Christian, you’re likely one of the first to notice specific ways God is working in their life, changing them, preparing them, gifting them.
We pay this kind of attention to the people we care the most about. It’s a way in which we demonstrate our deep love for them, whether consciously or subconsciously.
Imagine if we intentionally paid that kind of attention to every Christian in our immediate community? If we cared that much to know them, to know about them… to consider them.
It’s not enough that, if or when we think about our fellow Christians, we’re focusing on the right things. You and I are called to be intentional about making the choice to consider (or give serious thought to) one another.
Calling others to mind should be a priority practice in our lives. And not just for the sake of being able to tell someone, “Thinking of you,” but rather, for the sake of giving deep, meaningful, prayerful consideration to the people God’s placed in our lives.
This is one of the reasons why it’s so important that you and I are living in Christ-centered community in the first place. We have to know, and be known by, one another. Because unless we take the time to really get to know one another (likes, dislikes, personalities, talents, skills, experiences, spiritual gifts, etc.), we can’t possibly be able to recognize what God’s up to in the lives of the people around us!
But when we do get to know other Christians, and we are able to observe ways in which God is at work both in them and through them, we can have the joy of helping them see it too! Let me share with you an example of this from my own life…
This blog that you’re reading right now exists largely because of Christian friends and family members who recognized the ways that God’s wired me, and who encouraged me to use the natural talents and spiritual gifts that God’s given me to encourage others through written word.
”If you feel like you’re supposed to be writing, then do it! What’s stopping you?”
“People change vocations all the time. It’s never to late to pursue something else, if that’s where you feel God is leading you.”
“You’re a writer, aren’t you? You’re not?! Well… you should be.”
Nobody told me exactly how to go about it, or exactly what to write. They weren’t supposed to. That was God’s business.
But their well-considered words gave me the courage I needed to step out in faith (Ephesians 4:29). Had it not been for the people who got to know me and considered me — not just who I was, but the tools God had given me and the passions He was stirring up within my heart — and spoke up, I’d likely still be sitting behind my old desk at the law firm where I used to work, drafting pleadings and filing paperwork, daydreaming about the things I would be writing if I’d pursued a different vocation.
Of course, that’s just my testimony. Yours will look different, and it should, because your testimony won’t be about me; it’ll be about how God has wired you and the good work that He has in store for you to do.
But more likely than not, it’ll also be about the people God brought into your life who lived out Hebrews 10:24 — other Christians who got to know you and considered you, who saw what God was doing in your life, and who founds ways to encourage you to pursue the good work God planned for you to do!
And you will have the chance to play that role in the lives of others as well! But it starts with deciding to get to know and consider the people God’s placed in your life.
As you and I get to know other people, whenever we see something good in someone else, be it a quality or talent or skill, or the evidence of a spiritual gift — anything that has the potential to be used to advance God’s kingdom here on earth through love and good works — we should let them know! Our well-considered words of encouragement might just be the final nudge someone else needs to convince them to step into that role that God’s already stirring up their passions to pursue — a role that God’s been preparing them for long before any one of us ever had a clue!
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. - Ephesians 2:10 (CSB)
Want to read more articles like this one? Subscribe today for free, and you’ll get blog posts and updates sent straight to your inbox, so you’ll never miss a thing!
