The Physics of Fellowship: Hatred's Friction and Love's Oil Text: Proverbs 10:12
Introduction: Two Ways to Build a World
Every community, every church, every family, and every nation is built according to one of two architectural blueprints. The first is the way of Babel, and the second is the way of Pentecost. The first is the way of man, and the second is the way of God. The first results in confusion, strife, and scattering. The second results in clarity, harmony, and gathering. The book of Proverbs is intensely practical, and it boils down these grand, sweeping, historical movements into the daily interactions between you and your neighbor. It shows us that the great wars of history are simply the small wars of the heart, writ large.
Our text today presents us with this fundamental choice. It is a spiritual fork in the road, and we take one path or the other with every word we speak about others, with every thought we entertain about a brother who has wronged us. This proverb is about the social physics of God's moral universe. There are two forces at work in the world, two energies that shape all human relationships. One is a force of friction, abrasion, and disintegration. The other is a force of cohesion, lubrication, and restoration. One is the way of hatred, which is fundamentally satanic. The other is the way of love, which is the very nature of God.
We live in an age that is addicted to strife. Our entire culture is marinated in the brine of grievance. The media, the universities, and the political class all thrive on stirring the pot, on picking the scab, on finding and exposing and prosecuting every fault, real or imagined. They are in the business of strife-mongering. They are merchants of hatred, and their business is booming. But the church is called to be a colony of heaven, a place where a different economy is at work. We are called to be a people who are proficient in the currency of grace, and this proverb gives us the basic exchange rate. Hatred trades in strife, but love deals in covering.
The Text
"Hatred stirs up strife,
But love covers all transgressions."
(Proverbs 10:12 LSB)
The Abrasive Power of Hatred
The first half of the proverb is a straightforward diagnosis of a diseased heart.
"Hatred stirs up strife..." (Proverbs 10:12a)
The word for hatred here is not a mild dislike. It is a deep-seated animosity, a bitter root that, once planted, inevitably produces poisonous fruit. And what does this hatred do? It "stirs up." It awakens, it incites, it provokes. The image is that of poking a sleeping dog with a sharp stick, or throwing a stone into a calm pond to muddy the waters. Hatred is an active, agitating force. It cannot leave well enough alone.
Hatred is never content with the original offense. It must amplify it. It must broadcast it. It is a spiritual gossip. It rummages through the trash for ammunition. It remembers old sins that were confessed and supposedly forgiven years ago. It keeps a meticulous record of wrongs. When a brother sins, the heart of love asks, "How can I fix this? How can I restore him?" The heart of hatred asks, "How can I use this? How can I make him pay?"
The result is "strife." Contention, quarrels, division, arguments. Hatred is the great divider. It separates friends, splits churches, and destroys families. The man who is animated by hatred is a walking agent of discord. He sees a small crack in a relationship and, instead of trying to mend it, he inserts a wedge and hammers it with all his might. He is a talebearer, a whisperer, a slanderer. He thinks he is a righteous prosecutor, a discerning critic, but he is in fact a pawn of the great Accuser of the brethren, Satan himself (Rev. 12:10). When you find a Christian who is always in the middle of a fight, who has a long history of broken relationships and church splits, you have not found a courageous warrior for the truth. You have found a man whose heart is septic with hatred.
This is why we must be ruthless in mortifying all bitterness, wrath, and malice in our own hearts. We cannot give it any quarter. To harbor a grudge is to lease a room in your soul to the devil, and he will not be a quiet tenant. He will be constantly agitating, stirring you up to strife, urging you to pick that fight, to send that email, to make that cutting remark.
The Healing Power of Love
The contrast, as is common in Proverbs, could not be more stark. Over against the agitating power of hatred, we have the healing power of love.
"But love covers all transgressions." (Proverbs 10:12b LSB)
This is one of the most beautiful and most misunderstood phrases in all of Scripture. The Apostle Peter quotes this very proverb, telling us to "have fervent love among yourselves, for love will cover a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8). So what does it mean to "cover" a transgression?
First, let's be clear about what it does not mean. It does not mean being complicit with sin. It does not mean sweeping unrepentant, public sin under the rug and pretending it didn't happen. It does not mean enabling a sinner to continue in his destruction. Godly love is not a sentimental, spineless tolerance of evil. Paul rebuked Peter to his face publicly (Gal. 2:11). The Corinthian church was commanded to excommunicate the man sleeping with his father's wife (1 Cor. 5). There is a time for public rebuke and formal discipline. Love does not cover sin in a way that obstructs the path of repentance.
So what does it mean? To cover a transgression is the opposite of stirring up strife. It is the refusal to gossip. It is the refusal to be a talebearer. It is the determination to deal with a sin as quietly and privately as possible, according to the pattern Jesus gives us in Matthew 18. Love's first instinct is not to expose, but to restore. It goes to the brother privately. It seeks to win him over, not to win an argument against him.
Covering sin means we absorb the cost of minor offenses without even mentioning them. Your brother was short with you. Your sister forgot to thank you. Love covers that. It doesn't make a federal case out of it. It is a spiritual shock absorber. It refuses to take offense where none was intended, and it is quick to forgive when it was.
Covering sin means that when a sin has been confessed and forsaken, it is truly buried. You do not bring it up again. You do not hold it over the person's head. You don't bring it up in the next argument six months later. To do so is to break your promise of forgiveness. Love covers the sin by removing it from the record books and treating the offender as though the offense never happened. It is to grant a true, gospel pardon.
This kind of love is not natural to us. It is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. It requires a fervent love, a determined charity. It is the imitation of God Himself. How does God treat our sins? "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12). He casts them into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). He remembers them no more (Hebrews 8:12). This is the ultimate covering.
The Cross as the Ultimate Covering
Ultimately, this proverb points us far beyond our own interpersonal relationships and directs our gaze to the cross of Jesus Christ. For there is only one covering for sin that can truly satisfy the justice of a holy God. All our attempts to cover the sins of others are but a dim reflection of the great covering that God has provided for us in His Son.
The Bible is clear that the man who tries to cover his own sins shall not prosper (Proverbs 28:13). Self-justification is a flimsy garment, a covering of fig leaves that cannot hide our nakedness before God. We cannot cover our own sins. We need an external, divine covering.
And this is precisely what the gospel is. God, in His infinite love, sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. On the cross, Jesus did not sweep our sins under the rug; He absorbed them into Himself. He became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). The wrath of God that we deserved for our hatred, our strife, our gossip, and our bitterness was poured out upon Him. His blood is the great covering. His righteousness is the perfect robe that is imputed to us by faith.
Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered (Psalm 32:1). This is the foundation of all Christian fellowship. We are a community of the covered. We are a people who have been forgiven an incalculable debt. And because we have been forgiven so much, we are now commanded and enabled to forgive much. We love because He first loved us. We cover because He first covered us.
Therefore, when you are tempted to stir up strife, when you feel that bitter root of hatred beginning to sprout, you must immediately preach the gospel to yourself. You must remember the cross. You must remember that your sins, which were scarlet, have been covered and made as white as snow. You must look at your brother, not through the lens of his offense against you, but through the lens of the cross where Christ died for him also. That is the only power that can transform a strife-stirrer into a peacemaker. That is the only way to learn the physics of fellowship, where the oil of Christ's love overcomes the friction of our sin.