Christian Leadership Alliance

Dealing with Difficult People

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How Should I Live My Life?

I had to face this question 15 years ago during a church service at a time in my life when I was teaching management to MBA students. I realized one morning that while I was an openly Christian professor I kept the Bible for Bible studies but relied on the traditional textbooks for teaching and for my own management of 20 school employees. During the sermon the pastor stated the Great Commandment to love God and love people. I realized that 'love' was an action word and that it spoke of how I should live my life. I was sure I understood how to love God, but how should I love my employees and my peers in the workplace?

Finding Love in all the Right Places

I decided that if I was going to 'love' employees and peers that I needed to start with what I had learned on Sunday. I knew of Eros, Phileo, and Agape—but none of these seemed to really fit the workplace. Not seeing a workable solution from the three forms of love, I went back to the New Testament and looked for something else. I found a form of love—Agapao—that I had not heard of before. It is the most common form in the Greek New Testament and seems to be 'moral' love—doing the right things for the right reason at the right time. I found that Agapao is derived from the same root word as Agape but the modification of the word significantly modifies the meaning. This is similar to the differences between 'waterfall' and 'waterway'—both have the same root but if you do on a waterfall what you do on a waterway you are in for a problem. But now that I had the right concept to help me know how to love my neighbor, how do I do this?

The Beatitudes

At about the same time of my insight into Agapao I heard a presentation on the beatitude 'blessed are the meek' and how we all need to be meek. I could not imagine telling our MBA students to be meek—we had been teaching them to be aggressive in business, assertive, and so on. I realized the dilemma that I was in that if we are to apply scripture to our lives that we have to put all of scripture to all of our lives. I wondered if I didn't fully understand the Beatitudes. What I found in my studies showed me how to love others and how I should live my life.

In this article, I introduce each of the seven Beatitudes and show how each beatitude relates to our lives. Subsequent articles could address each beatitude in more depth with more examples to help each of us understand how we should live. As you contemplate these beatitudes, give yourself some time for the message of the Beatitudes is counter too much of what we are taught. I have struggled with the transformation for 15 years and while I believe I have made changes in my life, I know I have a long way to.

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