For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.
The name of God is blasphemed among Gentiles and unbelievers when those who rest in the law, boast in God, and claim to be a guide of the blind, a light in darkness, and teachers of others break that same law and thereby dishonor God. This was fulfilled when the conduct of the Jewish nation made them obnoxious to the Gentiles and brought reproach on God's name. Those entrusted with light and blessing are responsible to receive and share them, and rejecting the light or acting in ways that repel others hinders people from reaching the truth.
God's name is brought into disrepute when those who profess to worship Him behave in ways that contradict that profession, bearing Christ's name while living with unchanged, selfish hearts and giving unbelievers cause to reproach Christ and pure religion. It is blasphemed when those who bear Christ's name deny His character in how they treat others, for a religion that undervalues people Christ gave Himself for or neglects the needs, suffering, and rights of the poor, suffering, and sinful is false and makes Christianity powerless in the world. Professed worshipers dishonor God when they boast of their piety while looking down on people they call heathen, as the Jewish religious leaders' lack of sympathy for the wise men, whom God regarded more highly than these worshipers, exposed the emptiness of their religious claims.
The lawbreaking that causes this result includes teaching another without teaching self, preaching against stealing, adultery, and idolatry while doing them, measuring and numbering fellow ministers, judging character, excluding brethren, and indulging hasty temper, impatience, and self-exaltation. It includes uncontrolled anger and strife before heathen officers, which made the Jews' claim to serve God a reproach. A believer's wrongdoing brings chief guilt against God because of its evil influence on others, for when a professing Christian makes light of any of God's requirements and lives a defective life, he makes laws for himself out of harmony with God and leads another who has confidence in him to do the same, while unbelievers watch such defective lives and turn them against the faith, saying they would never do such things if they believed what Christians profess.
When professed Sabbathkeepers live in a way that is no honor to the truth, failing to abstain from the very appearance of evil and laying stumbling blocks in the way of others, they give unbelievers occasion to blaspheme, dishonor God, and injure the cause of truth. Those who profess to believe in God but are not true believers, who claim to be His sons and daughters yet do not do His will and do not follow Christ's example, grieve the Lord and grieve the Holy Spirit and give occasion for the truth to be evil spoken of among unbelievers, and they will perish with the wicked unless they separate themselves from worldly associates and follow Christ. The warning belongs especially to those living amid the perils of the last days, calling them to be clean as bearers of the vessels of the Lord, to crucify the irritable temper, to take heed to their own conduct rather than measuring a brother, to be careful how they measure a brother, and to put no occasion of stumbling or stumbling block in a brother's way.
Those who do this must make an entire change and shape their course to be in keeping with the truth, taking an elevated course separated from the world, its folly, its vice, and those who love it, or they had better leave the ranks of Sabbathkeepers rather than remain without discipline and reproof. God wants every believer to be a representative of the truth for this time, to fulfill His purpose, receive His peace, reach a higher standard, look to Jesus for strength, pray and believe, and glorify Christ in a well-ordered life and godly conversation, so as to be saved in His kingdom instead of leading others astray by unsanctified lives.
The name of God is blasphemed among Gentiles and unbelievers when those who rest in the law, boast in God, and claim to be a guide of the blind, a light in darkness, and teachers of others break that same law and thereby dishonor God. This was fulfilled when the conduct of the Jewish nation made them obnoxious to the Gentiles and brought reproach on God's name. Those entrusted with light and blessing are responsible to receive and share them, and rejecting the light or acting in ways that repel others hinders people from reaching the truth.
God's name is brought into disrepute when those who profess to worship Him behave in ways that contradict that profession, bearing Christ's name while living with unchanged, selfish hearts and giving unbelievers cause to reproach Christ and pure religion. It is blasphemed when those who bear Christ's name deny His character in how they treat others, for a religion that undervalues people Christ gave Himself for or neglects the needs, suffering, and rights of the poor, suffering, and sinful is false and makes Christianity powerless in the world. Professed worshipers dishonor God when they boast of their piety while looking down on people they call heathen, as the Jewish religious leaders' lack of sympathy for the wise men, whom God regarded more highly than these worshipers, exposed the emptiness of their religious claims.
The lawbreaking that causes this result includes teaching another without teaching self, preaching against stealing, adultery, and idolatry while doing them, measuring and numbering fellow ministers, judging character, excluding brethren, and indulging hasty temper, impatience, and self-exaltation. It includes uncontrolled anger and strife before heathen officers, which made the Jews' claim to serve God a reproach. A believer's wrongdoing brings chief guilt against God because of its evil influence on others, for when a professing Christian makes light of any of God's requirements and lives a defective life, he makes laws for himself out of harmony with God and leads another who has confidence in him to do the same, while unbelievers watch such defective lives and turn them against the faith, saying they would never do such things if they believed what Christians profess.
When professed Sabbathkeepers live in a way that is no honor to the truth, failing to abstain from the very appearance of evil and laying stumbling blocks in the way of others, they give unbelievers occasion to blaspheme, dishonor God, and injure the cause of truth. Those who profess to believe in God but are not true believers, who claim to be His sons and daughters yet do not do His will and do not follow Christ's example, grieve the Lord and grieve the Holy Spirit and give occasion for the truth to be evil spoken of among unbelievers, and they will perish with the wicked unless they separate themselves from worldly associates and follow Christ. The warning belongs especially to those living amid the perils of the last days, calling them to be clean as bearers of the vessels of the Lord, to crucify the irritable temper, to take heed to their own conduct rather than measuring a brother, to be careful how they measure a brother, and to put no occasion of stumbling or stumbling block in a brother's way.
Those who do this must make an entire change and shape their course to be in keeping with the truth, taking an elevated course separated from the world, its folly, its vice, and those who love it, or they had better leave the ranks of Sabbathkeepers rather than remain without discipline and reproof. God wants every believer to be a representative of the truth for this time, to fulfill His purpose, receive His peace, reach a higher standard, look to Jesus for strength, pray and believe, and glorify Christ in a well-ordered life and godly conversation, so as to be saved in His kingdom instead of leading others astray by unsanctified lives.