{"id":1258,"date":"2011-07-20T14:30:42","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T21:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2024-03-26T12:36:10","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T19:36:10","slug":"dont-despute-testify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/2011\/07\/20\/dont-despute-testify\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#039;t despute. Testify!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1259\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/07\/disputes.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/07\/disputes.jpg 500w, https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/07\/disputes-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/07\/disputes-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-size: large;color: #666699\">\u201cDo all things without murmurings and disputing, that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God,without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world; holding forth the Word of Life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.\u201d <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium\">(Philippians 2:14-16 NKJV)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Charles H. Spurgeon:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Dispute not with God; let him do what seemeth him good. Dispute not with  your fellow Christians, raise not railing accusations against them.  When Calvin was told that Luther had spoken ill of him, he said, \u201cLet  Luther call me devil if he please, I will never say of him but that he  is a most dear and valiant servant of the Lord.\u201d Raise not intricate and  knotty points by way of controversy. Remember, you have adversaries  upon whom to use your swords, and therefore there is little need that  you should turn their edges by dashing at the armor of your fellows.  Dispute not even with the world. The heathen philosophers always sought  occasions for debate; be it yours to testify what God has told you, but  court not controversy. Be not ashamed to contend earnestly for the faith  once delivered to the saints, but never do it in a spirit of mere  debating, never because you wish to gain a victory, but only because ye  would tell out what God hath bidden ye reveal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><em><span style=\"font-size: x-small;color: #808080\">From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled, &#8220;Believers &#8211; Lights in the World,&#8221; September 1862.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cDo all things without murmurings and disputing, that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God,without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world; holding forth the Word of Life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":1259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-misc","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9439,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions\/9439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}