Edification

I don’t recall using this word outside of the Bible – or a college course:

edificationpronunciation: edəfiˈkāSHən
noun formal
the instruction or improvement of a person morally or intellectually.
synonyms: education, instruction, tuition, teaching, training, tutelage, guidance;

Still, I find it some of my favorite verses:

Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction. (2 Corinthians 13:10 KJV)

Edification is what I’m doing here. Educating, instruction, teaching, guiding – edifying anyone who will take the time to read. It is a good biblical example to follow:

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. (1 Corinthians 10:23 KJV)

Christ gave the law in such simple words that anyone in the world can understand them:

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40 KJV)

The entire Bible is based on love. Yes – I can say that in spite of God’s destruction of cities deemed appropriate, cultures He required be wiped out and the evil men have done to each other. The basis of God’s interaction with mankind is based on love. That’s the most basic lesson I could share:

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. (1 John 4:7-11 KJV)

You cannot know how I love my husband because you have not lived with him as I have. Frankly, you cannot know how I love my Lord – unless you have chosen to live with Him, too. Through Him, as John states, we live – differently than those who ignore, reject or deride Him. Oddly enough, we do outnumber them, but we’re not doing a good job of getting the message across. Why?

Edification. That instruction or improvement of a person morally or intellectually that we’ve been given as a task:

Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. (Romans 15:2 KJV)

We are not to please our neighbor – our brother – for his contentment, happiness or joy. We are to please for edification, for education. We do not please others when we argue or anger. When we change it from a noun to a verb, it gets even better:

Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. (Romans 14:19 KJV)

Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do. (1 Thessalonians 5:11 KJV)

What are we doing to make peace and offer comfort?