Words Are Alive Do Not Quarrel
2Timothy 2: 23-24 Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Words are alive; cut them and they
bleed." Not only do the words
themselves bleed but they can cause even more damage when not wielded
carefully. We are inherently fragile beings who bleed easily. That does not change
upon salvation either. Once saved however, the enemy has lost the war for your
soul. His desire at that point is to make you ineffective for the
In these verses from second Timothy we see the Apostle Paul warning about quarrels. Sometimes we can look at a word like quarrel and think of it as a simple disagreement but the dictionary defines quarrel as:
An angry dispute or altercation; a disagreement marked by a temporary or permanent break in friendly relations.
A quarrel requires anger and is defined by a break in friendly relations as a result of it. It is more extreme than just a disagreement. The enemy would like nothing more than to continue to cause angry disputes and altercations amongst the brethren; breaking friendships and fellowships. By the time we are involved in a quarrel it is often too late. Words are used as weapons and we find ourselves wounding our brothers and sisters. The Bible defines a source of quarrels for us in the Book of Proverbs:
