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Being open minded vs. taking a stand
Rom 12:2 – “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
In this portion in I Kings Solomon married many wives and then tended to drift after that. He started to get too comfortable with all kinds of philosophies which were alien to Israel’s Yahweh. His open-mindedness was regarding issues which were central to his life and life of the future of the nation of Israel. Solomon made the mistake of being flexible and open-minded on a core issue when he had to take a stand for the truth. The same was true of Pilate when he needed to make a judgment. He was swayed by his desire to be popular over his commitment to truth and justice.
Many times we mistake being open minded on issues as being flexible. Our world system turns a blind eye to several practices in the workplace. Coarse joking, swearing, etc. become established norms in some corporations. They tend to call it the culture of the company. We, as Christians, sometimes turn a blind eye and even worse sometimes conform to that way of life. We progressively get desensitized. The other extreme is to isolate ourselves from the environment at work and in the process we lose our ability to influence others for Christ. Speaking the truth in love can be a useful guideline in such situations where we need to take a stand.
In my student days when I read the Sunday papers I used to casually go through the column “what the stars foretell”. It started more in fun than anything. But over the weeks and months I started to look at it quite interestedly and it took my wife courage to tell me that it was something that was not Christian and I stopped.
There are times when we have to take a stand on an issue. We will hear a lot of arguments on both sides, but as a manager or a person in charge we will be required to decide. We need to be open-minded to receive different points of view but make the final call in accordance with our core value system. The key is to be able to discern whether the issue is a core issue or a fringe issue.
Prayer:
Lord give me openness to hear different points of view. Give me the wisdom to make the right decisions or choices at the end of it all!
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Open mindedness to others and with other points of view and ways of doing things is a characteristic that does not come to us naturally. As Christians, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ calls us to live in vibrant fellowship with other believers, cutting across color, race, culture or nationality. At the workplace and in the church we are called to be open to receive suggestions and even criticisms to help nurture our Christian growth.
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