When Jesus was accused of dining with sinners, He justified His action by saying that those who are whole have no need of a physician. Sometimes, we have the mistaken notion that the Church should be filled with flawlessly perfect people; but the reverse is the case. In more sense than one, the Church is like a hospital where people with different ailments – spiritual, physical, social – come to get better. The Church may as well take this line as her unwritten motto: COME AS YOU ARE BUT DON’T REMAIN AS YOU CAME.

In our meditation yesterday, Paul told us what to do with the unruly population in the Church. Returning to the same text today, we notice that they also had feeble people among them as well. This lot needs words of comfort. Feebleness can come from several ways. Expectedly, new believers in Christ would be of feeble mind. The new birth, in several ways, is analogous to natural birth. A newborn is feeble in mind and body. Its survival is totally dependent on the warmth and comfort that the mother and other loved ones provide. Without it, the baby’s chance of survival is drastically reduced. That is also how weak a new believer is, needing all the support from more mature believers in the system. This does not preclude old believers from being feeble in mind. At any point in the Christian journey, discouragement may set in. It could be as a result of delayed expectations or some debilitating problems that have refused to go away. For any type of feebleness, God’s recommendation is the same. The brethren are to offer words of comfort. Your words of wisdom could be the tonic that somebody needs to carry on.