2 Samuel 4

9 David answered Rekab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As surely as the Lord lives, who has delivered me out of every trouble, 10 when someone told me, ‘Saul is dead,’ and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and put him to death in Ziklag. That was the reward I gave him for his news! 11 How much more—when wicked men have killed an innocent man in his own house and on his own bed—should I not now demand his blood from your hand and rid the earth of you!”

If there is one thing that I admire about David’s life more than his courage and giant fighting skills was how he honored people even when they were not seeing eye to eye. In fact, some might say that David went as so far as to to put too much honor on men like King Saul, Jonathan and on this story Ish-bosheth. The men David honored when actually men who in our eyes are not as honorable and are hard to honor.

It actually hit me that David build a culture of honor even among the people who did not agree with him and who are out to kill him. Sad to say, in our Christian circles especially among theologians – there is deep seated pride and a culture of correcting people publicly instead of privately. I have seen people maligned, gossip in the guise of theological discussion with the end result putting people and even pastors in a bad light. The sad thing is the pastor being discussed is not given an opportunity to respond back. Nakakalungkot dahil ang mahilig manira sa Kristiyano ay ang kapwa Kristiyano.

I have no problem with correction as long as the first step is to correct privately. But to start spreading it publicly and to the world through social media, it is below the belt and dishonoring to the Lord. We as Christians should come together and discuss with a sound mind and not with a judgmental heart. I was guilty of this before and I have repented of my ways and I do hope we would see a resurgence of the spirit of honor among ourselves.

To my fellow Christian bloggers and leaders, let us pray that we will be like David – not easy in pinpointing the errors of somebody publicly but try to reach out to them and point their errors privately. The Scripture commands us to settle the matter privately so that the world may see that we Christians can actually get along.