The Art of Encouragement

Cover Article

by Michael Jones · Week of June 14, 2026

Picture a man walking through a desert. The sun has scorched the ground to powder, and every breath pulls heat into his lungs. His water is gone. His legs tremble. Then a voice calls out: “Keep going—there is water just ahead.” That single sentence floods his body with strength he did not know he had. He takes another step. Then another. That is what encouragement does. It does not change the desert, but it changes the man walking through it. Paul understood this when he wrote to the Thessalonians: “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). Paul does not treat encouragement as optional. He places it alongside faith, love, and hope as essential to the life of God’s people. The writer of Hebrews intensifies this call: “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). Every day—not when we feel like it, not when it is convenient—because the alternative, a slow hardening of the heart, is quietly devastating. God made us so that the soul flourishes under the sunlight of a kind word and withers in the cold silence of neglect.

But real encouragement is not flattery. Flattery is lazy; it tosses out vague compliments like confetti and hopes something sticks. True encouragement requires the careful eye of a painter. Solomon captures its beauty: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11). Gold inside silver, precious metal cradled in precious metal—that is what a well-chosen word of encouragement is. It requires attention: noticing that a brother has been absent, that a sister’s smile has faded, that a young Christian is quietly struggling with doubt. It requires specificity. Saying “Good job” costs little. But saying “I watched you serve that family last Tuesday with patience I could see came from the Lord”—that lands like rain on parched soil. Barnabas understood this. His very name means “son of encouragement” (Acts 4:36), and wherever he went, struggling believers found their footing again. When Jerusalem was suspicious of the newly converted Saul, it was Barnabas who stood beside him (Acts 9:27). One man’s encouragement helped unleash the greatest missionary the world has ever known.

Encouragement also requires honesty. It does not pretend away pain or paste a smile over sorrow. When Paul wrote to the Philippians from a Roman prison, he did not minimize his suffering. Instead, he declared, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). That is honest encouragement—acknowledging the weight of the chain while pointing to the One who is stronger than any chain. It says, “I see what you are carrying, and I see God carrying you.” Consider the difference this makes in a marriage. How many homes would be transformed if husbands and wives took seriously the command to “outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10)? Consider the difference in the church. Paul told the Ephesians to speak only what is “good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29). Imagine if every word spoken in our assemblies, our Bible classes, our hallway conversations, passed through that filter. Our congregation would become a greenhouse where faith grows tall and strong.

Here is the deep truth beneath it all: when we encourage one another, we are not merely being nice. We are participating in the transforming work of God. We are becoming more like Christ, who “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2) so that we would never walk the desert alone. Paul reminded the Corinthians that God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4). Every time God lifts you up, He is equipping you to lift someone else. So this week, ask yourself: Who is walking through the desert right now? A young believer wrestling with doubt. A widow sitting in an empty house. A brother who failed and fears he cannot come back. Find them. Speak life into their weary bones. You hold in your mouth the power of apples of gold. Do not keep it to yourself. - MJ

Other congregations are welcome to reprint this. It may be reproduced in another congregation’s bulletin or newsletter without asking permission. An acknowledgement of Orange View Church of Christ is appreciated but not required.

Bible Questions & Answers

What’s the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant?

This is one of the most important questions a Bible student can ask, because how we understand the two covenants determines how we read Scripture, how we worship, and how we structure the Lord’s church. A covenant is a solemn agreement initiated by God with His people. The Greek word diathēkē (used throughout Hebrews) carries the dual meaning of “covenant” and “testament,” emphasizing that this is God’s arrangement on His terms. The Old Covenant was established with Israel at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19–24), centered on the Mosaic law and the sacrificial system administered by the Levitical priesthood. This covenant was glorious, but it had inherent limitations. Paul identifies the core problem: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weakened through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3, ASV). The law could diagnose the disease of sin, but it could not cure it. Paul elaborates in Galatians 3:24: “So that the law is become our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” The Greek word is paidagōgos—a servant who escorted a child to the teacher. The law was never the destination; it was the escort leading Israel to Christ.

The New Covenant, promised through Jeremiah and inaugurated by Jesus Christ, is fundamentally different. The Hebrew writer quotes Jeremiah 31: “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and on their heart also will I write them” (Hebrews 8:10, ASV). Under the Old Covenant, the law was written on stone—external, rigid, condemning. Under the New Covenant, God’s will is written on the heart—internal, transformative, life-giving. This is not a revised edition of the same covenant; it is qualitatively new. The sacrificial system further illustrates this contrast. Year after year, the blood of bulls and goats was offered on the Day of Atonement, yet it could never ultimately remove sin. The Hebrew writer is emphatic: “For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). Those sacrifices were shadows pointing forward to the substance. Christ’s sacrifice is singular and sufficient: “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). When we gather each Lord’s day to partake of the Lord’s Supper (Acts 20:7), we do not re-offer a sacrifice; we remember the one sacrifice that accomplished what centuries of animal blood never could.

The scope of the two covenants also differs. The Old Covenant was made exclusively with Israel (Deuteronomy 5:1–3). The New Covenant is universal. Peter learned this through the conversion of Cornelius: “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that fears him, and works righteousness, is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34–35). Paul declares that in Christ “there can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free…for you all are one man in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Every person enters this covenant on the same terms—through faith in Christ, repentance from sin, and baptism into His death for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38; Romans 6:3–4).

What, then, happened to the Old Covenant? Jesus said, “Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil” (Matthew 5:17). The law was not discarded; it was completed in Christ. The Hebrew writer states plainly: “In that he says, A new covenant, he has made the first old. But that which is becoming old and aged is near unto vanishing away” (Hebrews 8:13). Today we live under the authority of the New Covenant—the New Testament of Christ. Our pattern for worship, for the organization of the church, for how we are saved, comes from the teaching of Christ and His apostles. We sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, making melody in our hearts to the Lord (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). We observe the Lord’s Supper on the first day of every week (Acts 20:7). We submit to New Testament authority because Christ is the mediator of a better covenant, established on better promises (Hebrews 8:6). Understanding this distinction is not merely academic—it is the foundation for faithful obedience in every generation. - MJ