Discover The Word

“Love does not rejoice in iniquity” (1 Corinthians 13:6).

IDEA: If we love people, we won’t rejoice in the evil other people do.

PURPOSE: To help listeners understand why it’s a sin against love to delight in other people’s failures and sins.

VOICE of someone doing the news, reporting that “there have been no fires and no crime in our community in the last year. Our latest bulletin is that more than 2,000 people have gone out of their way today to help their neighbors and to be kind to people at work. Over 90,000 couples have been together in stable marriages for over 30 years. Their children have graduated from high school and are now in college and are doing very well.

“Here’s a report just in: a huge number of ministers and priests and rabbis — 97% — have given at least 65 hours this week to helping people in their congregations and to praying for people in their community. This us up from three years ago when only 94% did that.

“Now for the weather. There are no storms in the Caribbean, the weather is good, and the traffic report is that the mass of cars got from work to their homes with only a minimum of delay and with no accidents.”

How would you respond to a news program like that?

When we say we listen to the news, what do we mean?

I. We often take malicious pleasure when someone we know about fails or sins.

Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Teddy Roosevelt, had a pillow made for her sofa on which was embroidered: “If you can’t say anything good about somebody, come sit next to me.”

Gossip thrives on our ugly delight in wrongdoing.