Brethren often talk about and worry over "the issues" among "us" and such concern is good.....as long as we are interested in the proper ones. May I suggest a few?

Personal issues. With David, "self" was evidently the primary issue: "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. I made haste, and delayed not, to observe thy commandments." (Ps.119:59-60). Maybe this is why he was a man after God's own heart (Acts13:22) and too many today are not. Paul's order to the Corinthians to "try" and "prove" themselves (2Cor.13:5) indicates his concern that we look to self before we try helping others, and Jesus warned those who were quick to deal with the faults of others to "cast out first the beam out of thine own eye" (Matt.7:5). Unless I make "self" issue number 1, it is unlikely that being "right" on other "issues" will matter much.

Family issues. Paul said, "ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4) and Solomon repeatedly tells children to listen to their fathers (Prov.1:8; 3:12; 4:1; 13:1; 23:22) which means dads must be there to teach and all of this takes precious time that passes too quickly to waste on issues of lesser importance. Neglect of our family's physical and/or spiritual needs at the expense of dealing with other "issues" is dangerous (1Tim.5:8).

Non-Christian issues. Taking the gospel to the lost was an issue with our first century brethren: they "went about preaching the word" even though their lives were literally at stake (Acts8:4). Should not their good examples shame us into greater activity? And Jesus' call to "Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white already unto harvest" (Jo.4:35) indicates this was an "issue" with him and should be with us.

Local church issues. Is it an "issue" with you to know the brothers and sisters with whom you have regular fellowship well enough so that you can "admonish the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be longsuffering toward all" (1Thess.5:14)? Can you provide the "exhortation...consolation of love...fellowship of the spirit...tender mercies and compassions" that you owe them so that you can "be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord" (Phil.2:1-ff)?

But unfortunately we frequently look past personal shortcomings and develop serious character flaws, our children go un-taught and eventually become apostates, non-Christians are by-passed and baptisms become fewer and fewer, and the needs of brethren in local fellowships go unattended as we slowly wither away spiritually. Why? We're too busy keeping up with and tending to another set of issues....

The brotherhood issues. Quite often, these issues are dictated to us by others (brotherhood papers and preachers), have little, if any, relevance to where we are, are very arbitrarily and narrowly defined, and are more focused on the men we have a disagreement with than on any doctrinal matter. And yet, in spite of these things, this is where we focus our time, interest, conversation and teaching

May I suggest that we rearrange our priorities and spend more time tending to the these issues of self, family, non-Christians and our brethren? In doing so, I believe we would discover that we have little time left over to read about, write about, and gossip about what's going on in the brotherhood.