Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 208 · July 27
Even as Ye Do
“Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.”
Think of the last time someone said something to you that got you through a hard week. It may have been one sentence, from a person who knew what you were facing, and it held you up for days. That is about the size of what this verse is asking for.
This verse reaches two different people, and it speaks to both of them. The first has nothing left. When they are told to comfort somebody else, they hear one more demand. The second thinks encouragement is what you offer when you have no real help to give, a soft option next to teaching, or money, or time.
Paul's second verb answers the second person. "Edify one another" is a building word. It means to put up a structure, to add another layer of bricks to a wall, so encouragement is real work that builds something. The first person is answered by what Paul has already written. At the end of the chapter before, after writing about the dead in Christ, he gave them the very words to use: "Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Just before today's verse he gives them the heart of it again: Christ "died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him." So nobody has to invent the comfort. Three verses later he sorts out the different needs: "warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men." Nobody has to do all four at once.
The last clause is the gentlest part of the sentence: "even as also ye do." Paul describes them as they already are before he asks anything more of them. So if you want to join in, the way in is small, and it is already open. Think of one person whose hard week you know something about. In the coming days, tell them one true thing you know about God, in your own words. Nobody is asking you to build the whole wall. One layer of bricks is the invitation, and God is the one who builds His people up through it.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 208 is Better Than the Birds (Matthew 6:26).