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| (Torrey Pines) |
I taught Logic for eighteen years at Monroe County Community College. Logic is about evaluating, and formulating, arguments. In my first class session I would explain this, and the difference between evaluating and formulating arguments and being argumentative.
"Get away from a man who argues every time he talks."
- Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert
Do not partner with the argumentative person. The argumentative person is not to be your companion. Love them, but do not be influenced by them.
Enter not into the arguments of the argumentative person. The argumentative person is fishing for an argument. Don't take their bait.
Relationships in the New Community are not to be like living in a court of law. Reason together? Yes. And always in love. Argumentative? No.
Don't go looking for a fight. Wage war against the devil, not people. If it has flesh and blood, it's not your real enemy.
More than loving peace, be a peacemaker. Lay down your swords. Beat them into plowshares. Convert your military weapons into instruments of righteousness and peace. Anyone can love peace. Peace-makers who are God's active agents of peace, on the other hand, are rare. They are blessed and called the offspring of God.
Or:
- Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert
Do not partner with the argumentative person. The argumentative person is not to be your companion. Love them, but do not be influenced by them.
Enter not into the arguments of the argumentative person. The argumentative person is fishing for an argument. Don't take their bait.
Relationships in the New Community are not to be like living in a court of law. Reason together? Yes. And always in love. Argumentative? No.
Don't go looking for a fight. Wage war against the devil, not people. If it has flesh and blood, it's not your real enemy.
More than loving peace, be a peacemaker. Lay down your swords. Beat them into plowshares. Convert your military weapons into instruments of righteousness and peace. Anyone can love peace. Peace-makers who are God's active agents of peace, on the other hand, are rare. They are blessed and called the offspring of God.
- Be at peace with God.
- Peace with God brings peace within.
- Peace within leads to peace with others.
Or:
- Abide in Christ.
- Christ gives you his peace, a peace unlike this world gives.
- Bring this heart of peace into your flesh-and-blood relationships.
Or:
- As a Jesus-follower you are "in Christ."
- In Christ there is peace (everlastingly so, in the perichoretic Triune being of the Godhead).
- Thus fulfill the prayer of Jesus in John 17 to "be one" with others, as Jesus and the Father are one.
