Articles
Believe All Things
When Nahash the Ammonite died, David determined to show kindness to his son, Hanun, as his father had showed to him. So, David assembled messengers who were tasked with delivering gifts to Ha-nun so that he might honor the memory of his old friend (2 Sam. 10:1-2). What a wonderful gesture! Generally, speaking, this was just the kind of thing that would cement one’s relationship with a dignitary (Prov. 18:16). Only, that’s not at all what happened in this case. The princes of Ha-nun convinced the king that David was acting with evil intent and that his real motive was to spy out the city and to overthrow it (2 Sam. 10:3). He then treat-ed David’s messengers very shamefully which led to war between Israel, Ammon, and Syria. All of it, because someone’s mind was poisoned against another by evil suspicion which tainted everything that person said or did. Have you ever experienced that?
The fix for this kind of toxic attitude is found in Paul’s teaching about love in 1 Cor. 13. “Love bears all things, believe all things, hopes all things, and endures all things” (v. 7)? Let’s think particularly about “believing all things.) When we love people, we will not immediately become suspicious of them and assign the worst possible motives to their words and ac-tions. We will instead learn to give people the benefit of the doubt. That is not to say that we are suggesting gullibility; if the facts lead to a regrettable conclusion, then the facts are the facts. But, our first inclination should not be to assume the worst and jump to conclusions. Again, have you ever found yourself in a situation in which you realized that if someone had seen or heard you in that situation, that it might be very easy to draw the wrong conclusion? I have.
When the associate at Costco responsible for checking the receipt and the items in the cart discovered that the large item under the cart had not been scanned, she invited me to follow her to a register so that she could send me on my way. It wasn’t my fault; I was told to leave the item in the cart, but the cashier was not told about the item by the one who had instructed me to do so, and I did not notice that it had been overlooked. Anyway, since the lines were long, I was led to an open register, only it was in a section of the store I had nev-er been—the beer, wine and spirits section. I’m fairly certain that this section exclusively sells alcohol. One might think that there is absolutely no reason for a preacher to be coming out of that section, yet that is exactly what I did. And, I was sure I was going to see someone from church entering as I departed. I didn’t, but isn’t that just the way things happen?
Another time, I was on Youtube trying to find a video that would ex-plain why my new brakes were making a squeaking sound, and in the middle of the video an ad suddenly broke in and said, “You prob-ably think this woman works out all the time.” Nothing says to those in earshot of your phone that Ross is looking at videos about well-sculpted women quite like that. Only, I wasn’t.
All of us have been in situations such as these. We do what we can to avoid the appearance of evil (kind of like Boaz who was afraid of an-yone getting the wrong impression when Ruth had come to him in the night, albeit not with questionable intentions. It made sense for him to recommend to her to leave early in the morning.) But what if you had been awake then and seen that. Would you have “known” what was up? How unfair and unkind is it to assume the worst? We must learn to treat others the way we want to be treated at all times.
You have to feel for poor Hannah in 1 Sam. 1. She is in bitterness of soul (1:10) over the ruthless taunts of her husband’s other wife, Pen-innah, who had been blessed to give Elkanah sons. She was weeping and fasting. She went to the house of the Lord in Shiloh and was praying and making a covenant with God. During this time, she spoke in her heart, only her lips were moving, but she did not speak audibly. She was being observed by Eli the priest. In the midst of her despair, his merciless rebuke rang out: How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you!” Could he have been more wrong about her? How ironic that this woman was in the process of offering her unborn child to God under the Nazarite vow as one who would not drink wine nor strong drink, and Eli’s first thought was that she was just a miserable drunk.
This story highlights one of our big problems with a lack of love, and in particular believing all things. We often believe all things in friends and families, but of those we do not know well or to whom we are not close, we are often very quick to draw unfavorable conclu-sions. What we learn later about Eli is that one of his major failings was his unwillingness to rebuke his sons (see 1 Sam. 2:23-24, 29). They were committing gross violations of God’s law, and yet the strongest he could muster was: no, no my sons. It’s not good. (a slap on the wrist) Yet with Hannah, you don’t detect any reservation about rebuke. He seems very bold to tell it like it is, disdainfully call-ing this absolute stranger a worthless drunk, even implying that this must be an habitual practice of hers (1:14).
Consider the following description of love by Albert Barnes
Albert Barnes describes the goal of Paul’s instruction well when he wrote: “There is a disposition to put the best construction on the con-duct of others; to believe that they may be actuated by good mo-tives, and that they intend no injury; and that there is a willingness to suppose, as far as can be, that what is done is done consistently with friendship, good feeling, and virtue. Love produces this, be-cause it rejoices in the happiness and virtue of others, and will not believe the contrary except on irrefragable evidence.“ (Barnes, Al-bert, Barnes‘s notes, P. 773)
Before hastily jumping to conclusions when tempted to think the worst, think of how many other possible explanations there are. It is actually very rewarding and good for one’s mental health when a per-son chosses not to succumb to evil suspicion. Honestly, I might even go so far as to say that it is “fun” to exercise the creative thinking nec-essary to come up with alternate possible explanations. Such an exer-cise reminds us that we likely don’t have all the facts (Prov. 18:17).
