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Graceways September 18 Devotional

by David Joynt on September 18, 2024


LEVITICUS 19:17b | 17b You shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself.

EPHESIANS 4:15 | 15 but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.

The challenge of this verse is breathtaking and the implications revolutionary. First we refrain from damaging slander. Next we give up grudges and patterns of negative thought. These two changes in external behavior and attitudes, then pave the way for a new level of responsibility for our neighbor’s welfare and potential. We are not given the option of becoming positive but passive, simply      refraining from negative things. Instead, we must have a relationship that is so deep with our neighbor that we have permission to reprove them. Reproof arises from care and concern and implies investment. We want to remove any barriers preventing another from flourishing and so, have to master the art of speaking the truth in love.

 

Can you reprove to improve?

 

Can you speak the truth in love?

 

 

Gracious God,

Give me the will to invest and the skills to bless others.

Amen.

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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