1 ¶ Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all
guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, 2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of
the word, that ye may grow thereby: 3 If
so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
Peter tells these Christians to put aside all malice, guile,
hypocrisies, envies, and all evil speaking. The context is the spoken word. Malice is the maliciousness, holding hostile
feelings in your heart and words for other Christians, meaning them no good.
Paul told the Gentile Christians over which he ministered;
1Corinthians 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old
leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
1Corinthians
14:20 Brethren, be not children in
understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.
Ephesians 4:31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
Colossians 3:8 But now ye also put off all these; anger,
wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Titus 3:3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish,
disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and
envy, hateful, and hating one another.
Malice is the context of the evil spoken of following in
1Thessalonians 5 as the passage is on how we are to act as a church toward each
other from our bishop or presiding elder who we call a pastor today, through
teachers who are pastors in the Bible, and toward each other.
1Thessalonians 5:11
¶ Wherefore comfort yourselves together,
and edify one another, even as also ye do. 12
And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and
are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; 13
And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. And be at
peace among yourselves. 14 Now we exhort
you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the
weak, be patient toward all men. 15 See
that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is
good, both among yourselves, and to all men.
16 ¶
Rejoice evermore. 17 Pray without
ceasing. 18 In every thing give thanks:
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 19 Quench not the Spirit. 20 Despise not prophesyings. [don’t hold
preaching in contempt] 21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is
good.[check what you hear by the Bible, chew the meat, and spit out the
bones] 22
Abstain from all appearance of evil.
Malice doesn’t have to be a desire to hit someone, get them
fired from their job, ruin their marriage, damage their reputation, key their
car, or let the air out of their tires. Malice can be expressed in seemingly
harmless ways. This can be anything from mean-spirited gossip behind a person’s
back to snide comments made just so the person can hear. For instance, someone
has made a cake for an event with the church and you say just so they can hear,
“I don’t see how anyone could eat that,” and then you smile so sweetly as you
walk away. Come on, you’re being a jerk and you know it. You need to get right
with God. There is the, “your sermons are getting better!” as if that was a
compliment when what you are saying is that you thought the sermons before this
one were trash. You’re being a jerk. Another one might be telling a child from
unfortunate circumstances that you need to buy him some clothes, thereby cutting
his parents to the quick because they can’t afford new clothes for him or
themselves. Maybe you tell a child whose
parents have told them to say, “Yes, sir,” and, “No, Ma’am,” that the child
doesn’t have to say that to you, thereby downgrading the authority of his or
her parents. That can also be done by ‘taking someone under your wing,’ so to
speak, and trying to replace a parent’s authority and affections, which you
hold in contempt, with your own. Malice
can take many forms. You know what you’re doing or you’re being thoughtless,
which is worse.
You want to drive someone from the congregation, act like
their authority over their own children is garbage in your eyes, act like their
responsibilities and family ties are trivial, call their job an idol, their
fashion sense worldly, and make it clear that their precious time and energy
should be there for you to spend in any way you see fit. Do it all in the name
of the Lord, and smile sweetly and say plenty of, “praise God.” You’re
malicious. Put it aside.
Then, there is the bitterness you feel because someone else
was made a deacon and you weren’t or the pastor visited someone but not you, or
during a church meeting that you didn’t attend because your favorite football team
was playing something was discussed that you had an opinion about and the whole
church function wasn’t placed on hold so they could consult you and you are
angry and you’re going to teach someone a lesson. You know who you are. Get
right with God now.
Guile is deceitful speaking, not saying what you mean, not
telling the truth, but trying to maneuver someone to a position where you want
them. It can be emotional manipulation to get someone to do something or even
just misrepresenting yourself in some way. Telling someone you will pray for
them when you have no intention of doing so to express concern is one piece of
guile and deceit. You’re sly, you’re cunning, and you use psychology to get
what you want. Preachers use guile when they hold an ‘altar call’ so long that
someone breaks down from the emotional pressure and ‘gets saved all over
again,’ a person certain old-time twentieth century preachers called a retread. Another example might be using
someone’s guilt to get them to do something like, “I know since the church
helped you when…that you’ll want to come out this Friday and help so and so,”
instead of just offering them the opportunity and trusting that if they can
make it they will.
Hypocrisies? Like when you say, “I don’t like to gossip
but…,” just before you talk about someone. When you complain about another
Christian being worldly and carnal because he takes a weekend off to go hunting
with family members but you aren’t when you go on vacation to visit your
family. Hypocrisies? Like when you criticize a brother because maybe he seemed
to appreciate feminine beauty a bit too long with his eyes for your taste while
you have that website on your computer you like to click on that has those
beautiful air-brushed girls. You know the one that came up when you hit the search
function and were trying to show your wife or brother Billy Bob another website
and you just exclaimed innocently, “I don’t understand why that showed up.”
Envy is a bitter curse among Christians.
Proverbs 27:4 Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but
who is able to stand before envy?
For you women you see a girl in the congregation and she’s
very pretty. You make snide comments to others about how worldly she is and how
you don’t even know if she’s saved. It is clear you don’t like her. But, in
reality you are jealous and envious of her youth and beauty and the attention
she gets because of it. Or you men, there is someone in the congregation who
started a business with his savings of less than a thousand dollars and built
it to a nice little business for himself and his family. But, well, you comment
about how he doesn’t know what it’s like to worry about paying his bills when
the truth is he worries about paying his bills and his employees paying theirs.
You have envy, and you are jealous. Christ was killed because of envy.
Mark 15:9 But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye
that I release unto you the King of the Jews? 10 For he knew that the chief priests had
delivered him for envy.
All evil or malicious speaking will destroy a fellowship,
split up a church, and drive people from the congregation.
Peter implores that these Christians, like infants, desire
the sincere milk of the word and to grow
by it, having tasted it and experiencing firsthand the graciousness of Christ. It
is more important that they grow in grace through God’s feeding of them by the
word than in numbers with just more butts in the pew who are cultural
Christians just there because it makes them feel justified. Perhaps they are
Super Bowl Christians just there for an emotional high or political Christians
just there because the preacher justifies their political bigotry. What Peter is hoping for is that real
Christians will feed on God’s word, not their own evil desires, poisoning the
fellowship with their own evil speaking.
As Paul said in Ephesians;
Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of
your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister
grace unto the hearers. 30 And grieve
not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and
anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
32 And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven
you.
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