Build each other up
The ministry of encouragement
Paul gives a simple, sweeping instruction: encourage one another and build each other up. The word for build up is a construction term — to edify, to add strength to a structure, to make something stronger than it was. We are meant to be, for one another, builders — people who leave others stronger, more established, more able to stand, than they were before the encounter.
This is a needed corrective, because we so easily do the opposite. The tongue that tears down comes more naturally than the tongue that builds up; criticism, discouragement, and the subtle deflating of others flow easily, while genuine encouragement takes intention and effort. Paul calls us to be deliberate builders in a world full of demolishers, leaving people edified rather than diminished.
And Paul gets specific about how this love adapts to need: encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. The fainthearted need encouragement; the weak need support; all need patience. Building one another up is not a generic warmth but a discerning love that gives each person what they actually need to grow stronger. Every interaction leaves the other person either a little stronger or a little weaker. Are you, on the whole, a builder or a demolisher in the lives of those around you?
“Therefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as you also do.”
— Paul, to the Thessalonians — 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (WEB)
Be a deliberate builder of others — encouraging and edifying so that people leave your presence stronger, with a discerning love that meets each one's need.
“Admonish the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient toward all.”
The deflating word comes out almost on its own, while genuine encouragement has to be chosen, deliberated, built. The interior work is to take up the trowel in a world swinging hammers — aiming, in each exchange, to leave a person more able to stand than you found them — and to fit the help to the need, bracing the fainthearted, steadying the weak, bearing with all. No exchange is ever neutral; each one sends someone away strengthened or diminished.
This week, build others up deliberately: in each significant interaction, aim to leave the person stronger than you found them, and tailor your encouragement to need — bolstering the fainthearted, supporting the weak, bearing patiently with all.
The enemy makes demolition effortless and construction costly, so a trail of criticism trickles from us almost unnoticed. Yet a deliberate builder who leaves others stronger and gives each one what they need to stand reverses the quiet wrecking he counts on to weaken and divide the body.
We tear others down more easily than we build them up. Criticism, discouragement, and the subtle deflating of people flow almost effortlessly, while genuine encouragement takes intention and care. Paul calls us to be deliberate builders in a world full of demolishers: encourage one another and build each other up, leaving people stronger than we found them.
This is a discerning love, not a generic warmth. Paul tailors it to need — encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient with everyone — because building people up means giving each person what they actually need to stand stronger. And the stakes are higher than we think, because every interaction leaves the other person a little stronger or a little weaker; there is no neutral. Consider the trail you leave in others' lives: are you, on the whole, a builder who edifies, or a demolisher who diminishes?
- Do I tear down more easily than I build up?
- Do people leave my presence stronger or weaker?
- How could I tailor encouragement to what each person actually needs?
Lord, I tear others down more easily than I build them up, leaving a trail of criticism and discouragement. Make me a deliberate builder, edifying rather than diminishing, with a discerning love that strengthens the fainthearted and supports the weak. Amen.