Sabbath Thought – The Soft Stuff

“The soft stuff is the hard stuff.” 

This adage is often repeated in business circles and is generally referring to working with personal attributes (social graces, communication, cooperation, honesty, respect, responsibility, friendliness) as opposed to talent, education, training or skills. The “hard stuff” is important – I want a highly qualified doctor operating on me, not a novice; I want a skilled pilot flying the airplane not a trainee; I want my boss to have the skills necessary to keep the company from ruin. The soft stuff in business is what gives a company a good work environment or makes them a company you like doing business with.

The “hard stuff” for a Christian would be doctrinal teaching – keeping the commandments, the Holy Days, studying God’s Word and so forth. So, what is the “soft stuff” that would be important for a Christian to consider? The “soft stuff” is how we interact with each other – and this is where the “soft stuff” becomes the “hard stuff,” because we are told that the Commandments are summarized in how we love God and how we love fellow man (Matthew 22:36-40). This doesn’t negate doctrinal teachings, because we only really know how to love God and fellow man through God’s teachings. Interacting with others can be challenging because we have to implement those teachings.

As a Church we agree on keeping the Sabbath day, the Holy Days, etc. but we can stumble on the “soft stuff” when we are harder on each other in our interactions than we are in our doctrinal implementation. We can easily think that because someone doesn’t see a point that we believe is correct, then they have a problem – all too often we can then impune motives or call into question the strength of their Christianity (Matthew 7:1-5). When we make the “hard stuff” (Biblical doctrine) more important than the “soft stuff” (Christian conduct and interaction) we break the spirit of the Great Commandment because we “hate” our fellow man while saying we love God (1 John 4:20). It is important to find a balance and remember that the “hard stuff” and “soft stuff” are equally important.

We can challenge each other to better keep God’s instruction – but we must do that without creating division. In order to do this in the best possible way, a strong relationship is required. A strong relationship can bear to hear uncomfortable observations, or to be corrected in general. We must consider the word or action we are about to put out there and the impact it will have on a brother or sister in Christ. The strong loving relationship we need to have as Christ’s disciples cannot be built with casual attendance on the Sabbath or Holy Days. Those relationships cannot be built wandering (physically or mentally) between organizations, but only through a sincere commitment of time, energy and God’s love to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

I often wondered when I was younger how the scripture would be fulfilled where Christ spoke of brother delivering up brother (Matthew 10:21). It saddens me to consider how we might treat each other when times truly get hard. We can be all too willing to “offer up” a brother on the altar of a hard stance regarding peripheral non-doctrinal matters. The weightier matters of the law (Matthew 23:23) involve mercy as well – let’s be about practicing that more as the body of Christ.

The soft stuff is the hard stuff.

Dan Dowd

23 August, 2010