For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.
The just person is one who is trying to serve God while temptations from within and from without assail him, toiling and struggling onward. To fall seven times is to fall repeatedly into sin or failure and yet to rise again, so that a fall does not end the struggle or place the fallen beyond hope. That falling includes failures in speech and action that do not represent Christ, yielding to temptation in word and deed through cycles of falling and rising again and of despairing and hoping.
Such falling does not remove a person from Christ's pity, help, and unchanging love, for He died for every person. Repeated failure is no reason for discouragement, for steady, determined effort and continued seeking of God can overcome even deeply rooted defects of character.
Because believers themselves struggle, fall, and rise, are not faultless, and are likewise subject to temptation, they must help one another with sympathy and unselfish love and must not deal harshly or unkindly. This means they must not disparage those with peculiar tempers who are hard to deal with, must not make their errors common property, and must not speak harsh, cutting words that drive a fallen one farther from the Saviour.
The just person is one who is trying to serve God while temptations from within and from without assail him, toiling and struggling onward. To fall seven times is to fall repeatedly into sin or failure and yet to rise again, so that a fall does not end the struggle or place the fallen beyond hope. That falling includes failures in speech and action that do not represent Christ, yielding to temptation in word and deed through cycles of falling and rising again and of despairing and hoping.
Such falling does not remove a person from Christ's pity, help, and unchanging love, for He died for every person. Repeated failure is no reason for discouragement, for steady, determined effort and continued seeking of God can overcome even deeply rooted defects of character.
Because believers themselves struggle, fall, and rise, are not faultless, and are likewise subject to temptation, they must help one another with sympathy and unselfish love and must not deal harshly or unkindly. This means they must not disparage those with peculiar tempers who are hard to deal with, must not make their errors common property, and must not speak harsh, cutting words that drive a fallen one farther from the Saviour.