Avoid Quarrels

"And the Lord's servant must not quarrel." Paul (II Timothy, 2:24)

Avoid those who look for quarrels in the service of the Lord.

They are not in search of divine clarity for the heart. They just dispute over glory and the promotion in the area of fleeting considerations. Upon analyzing the sacred scriptures, they do not attract their personal illumination, but rather, a way of putting their inferior personalism in evidence.

They combat the fellow beings that do not adopt their personal ideas, they disfavor the services that they do not hold in direct control; they do not collaborate except from the vertex to the base; they do not see advantages except in the tasks to which they themselves are assigned. They take pleasure in long discussions over where to place a comma, and they waste immense days in discovering the apparent contradictions of the writers consecrated to the ideals of Jesus. They never find time for the service of the Christian humility, simply interested in their own personal recognition. They always perceive as strange the conjugation of the verbs to help, to forgive and to serve. They invariably notice humanity's imperfection and they carry whips in their hands due to their poor taste of striking. They quarrel over all the particulars of the evangelical edification and, when the possibility for constructive agreement appears, they create new motives for disturbance.

Those that incorporate into the Redeeming Gospel, in the spirit of contention, are the greatest and most subtle adversaries of the Kingdom of God.

It is indispensable for the apprentice to be vigilant, so that he does not lose himself in the delirium of blunt useless words.

We were not called upon for quarrels, but rather, to serve and to learn with the Master; nor were we called upon to exalt the "self," but instead to fulfill the supreme designs in the construction of the Divine Kingdom within us.

XAVIER, Francisco Cândido. Our Daily Bread. By the Spirit Emmanuel. Spititist Alliance for Books, 2003. Chapter 98.