Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

Allowing someone to experience the full consequences of the person's words, actions, and choices is not necessarily indicative of not loving that individual.

Parents, for example, although they might unquestionably love their children, and be praying for them regularly, would be doing them a disservice by continually "cleaning up" after them or "covering" for them, and not permitting them to learn that maturity requires personal responsibility and accountability by having to deal with the full effects of their own behavior -- even at the cost of pain to both the children and the parents -- in the hope that the children may (however long it might take) see their error, reform themselves, and become productive adults. 

God applied this same "tough love" to Israel repeatedly (to the point of allowing them to be conquered and exiled), even though He also knew that it was among this people that Jesus would be born. 

In the case in point, I interpret Paul as ultimately having had to cease personal dealings or corrective efforts on behalf of Alexander -- who, as Paul said elsewhere, had "greatly resisted" Paul's words and teaching (apparently to the point of blasphemy, or the defiant, willful, purposeful breaking of God's commands) -- and to allow him to face whatever adverse results his Satanically-inspired behavior might inflict upon him.

August 30 2016 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report