Consider One Another

In Hebrews 10:24, we are urged to “consider one another.” Preaching this passage almost 20 years ago, John Piper had this to say about considering one another:

Consider one another. But this is almost impossible to bring over into English with the rest of the sentence, because it would be so awkward. It would have to go something like this: “Consider one another toward the stimulating of love and good works.” Now that is terrible English – good Greek word order but terrible English. The best we can do, it seems, is to say, “Consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.”

But I want you to get this nuance of the original so you can feel the force of this as a daily aim and focus for your life. Literally this is God’s call on us to consider one another, that is, to look at one another, think about one another, focus on one another, study one another, let your mind be occupied with one another. And the goal of this focus on others is to think of ways of stimulating them to love and good deeds.

Let’s take teenagers, for example. There are a lot of teens at Bethlehem who are alive to God. You have tasted his love for you and experienced the power of his forgiveness. And you want to do his will. But, like most everybody else, you get up many days, and feel aimless. What’s the point? Why school? Why work? And you slump through the day trying to feel good with music and food and friends. But it doesn’t feel like there is any point to it all, or any focus.

I urge you to hear God’s word in Hebrews 10:24. When you get up in the morning, “Consider – think about, ponder, deliberate, meditate, mull over – other people, with this conscious goal: what can I do today so that they will be stirred up to love and to good deeds? Now there is a reason to live and a focus for every day that will never be boring. Every day is new and different. People change. Their circumstances change. You change. But the call remains the same: consider, consider, consider these people you will be around today. What are they like? What am I like? What will the situation be like? What helps a person become loving? What is the origin of genuine good deeds? This is a reason for living that is focused enough to be practical and big enough to last a lifetime.

Obviously, we should consider the unbeliever and how it is that his heart may be stirred toward Christ, but do not miss the primary focus of this passage. The writer of Hebrews is focusing on the local large_3367228632church, on the “one another” aspect of Christianity. Who within your local church have you “considered” carefully recently, praying for ways that you might stir them up to good works. May God grant that our churches would be so committed to Christ and to one another that our thoughts would naturally focus upon each other and the ways that we can love one another more effectively in Christ.

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