For the past year governments around the world have been trying to control a public health emergency by curtailing liberties most of us would never have thought we would have to give up.

In an authoritarian state like China, the government simply imposes what measures it wants and people have to submit. In democratic nations, it’s a little harder than that. You have to persuade people to go along.

The problem has always been the same.

Too much of my world revolves around me. And I venture to say the same is true of you.

I see it in all sorts of obvious ways. I get impatient with the person driving too slowly in front of me. I’ve ordered something online and it’s late in coming. I’m fed up with being held up by government restrictions in the never-ending lockdown that passes for Canada these days.

Pressure reveals the person.

It’s always when things are tough and the stress piles on that what’s underneath emerges.

When all our kids were young and I was running a church office out of my home, the phone often rang right in the middle of some kind of family pandemonium. Our daughter Anna used to yell “Quiet!” at the top of her lungs, then in the ensuing moment of silence would pick the phone up with an ultra-competent voice saying, “Campbell’s. How can I help you?” No one ever knew what had been going on a split second before.

I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt what causes almost every church split.

In a word — the tongue.

Yes I know there are situations where other factors are involved. But James had it right when he warned us that the tongue stains the whole body, sets on fire the entire course of life, and is itself set on fire by hell.

James, those are strong words! And if they weren’t right there in the Bible, most of us would say they were a bit overstated.

Like many young men in his twenties, Papias was a man in a hurry. But his reason was unique.

It was around the year 80. Papias lived in the city of Hierapolis, which was strategically located in the middle of a road system that linked the major cities of Asia Minor with each other, and ultimately linked Jerusalem with Rome. Christian teachers would regularly visit the church there.