Daily Devotional
Wise Toward Good
The people of God are known not by loud claims, but by faithful obedience. In Judges, a quarrel among brethren turns quickly into threat, suspicion, and slaughter; the tongue becomes a weapon, and a word at the river separates the living from the dead. In Ezekiel, Jerusalem is weighed and divided under judgment, because she would not walk in the Lord’s statutes. In Romans, by contrast, the Church appears as a household of service: women and men laboring, receiving one another, helping the saints, and watching against those who corrupt the flock.
So the same lesson stands in all three readings: do not be numbered among the contentious, the rebellious, or the self-serving, but among those who do the good plainly before God. The evil that destroys a people is not always open idolatry first; often it is pride, envy, flattery, an undisciplined tongue, refusal to hear, and the love of one’s own place. Thus the warning is severe when God’s people choose what He does not delight in. As Justin says: “I called you, and you hearkened not, and did evil before me, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.’”
Therefore let the church be simple in evil and practiced in good. Clement says, “I would have you wise toward good, but simple towards evil.” Receive the faithful. Honor those who labor. Refuse smooth talk from men who serve themselves. Cut off strife before it ripens. If judgment begins with the house of God, then let repentance begin there also: in our speech, our hospitality, our alms, our steadfastness in the common life of the brethren.
“I called you, and you hearkened not, and did evil before me, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.’”
— Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho
“the apostle, in the Epistle to the Romans, owns that he rejoices, and furnishes a kind of definition of children, so to speak, when he says, "I would have you wise toward good, but simple towards evil."”
— Clement of Alexandria
For Reflection & Discussion
Whom will you receive or assist this week in a concrete way, as Phoebe was received and helped by the saints?
What contentious or proud word must you confess and cut off today before it does harm to a brother or sister?
How will you practice being wise toward good this week—by almsgiving, hospitality, fasting, or guarding your tongue from flattering and useless speech?
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