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Titus 3:10 "As for a man who is factious, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him".

 

Oh boy, there are so many factious people about these days! I'm not sure what has made our formerly civil society such a hot bed of enmity, but I do put a lot of the blame on both social and traditional media. When I started to see this factiousness spill over from my TV and computer screens into the people I love, I really did not know what to do. I was so shocked that they were acting as they were! I have to admit, I did not admonish them, at the time it seemed like it would have just created more problems, more factiousness, so I instead retreated from them, and then eventually had my "cutting the strings" vision, which gave me clarity.

 

Maybe I didn't do things right from the first time I saw the factious behavior. Maybe I should have tried admonishing, but honestly, the few times I tried to gently say something turned out terribly. I think Paul's instructions are meant for more reasonable times or more reasonable people. We are living in a Bizarro world right now, one in which there seems to be a purposeful effort to misinform and mislead people, installing fear in them, and turning them against their fellow man. Until people are ready to honestly grapple with the lies we've been told, rather than defending them vehemently, I don't think admonishing them will make any difference. I think the only thing to do is put them in God's hands and have as little to do with them as possible, other than necessary obligations.

 

Paul says these factious people are "perverted and sinful" and "self condemned" (Titus 3:11). I very much hope that is not true for most of the people I see behaving this way. I think they have in large part been manipulated and even brainwashed, and therefore do not have the same culpability. That is where my prayers come in, asking God to gently wake them up to reality, in the most merciful way possible, so they do not end up self-condemned.