Abraham Lincoln endured more press abuse than perhaps any president in American history, called a monkey, a dictator, a butcher, by newspapers coast to coast. Yet his own wife once marveled that he would sit longest with the most ragged visitors who came to his office, washerwomen and grieving mothers, listening for as long as they needed. Stephen Davey uses Lincoln's example to introduce the sixth supplement in 2 Peter 1:7, brotherly love, the same word used for treating fellow believers like actual family. Davey is candid that this doesn't come naturally, not in a church with people from a dozen countries and different tastes in sweet tea, and he leans on Ronald Reagan's quiet gesture toward a lonely soldier's wife, roses delivered in person rather than a phone call, as a picture of what it looks like in practice. Brotherly love, Davey insists, isn't a feeling. It's a decision, made one small deposit of grace at a time.
How to Treat Your Relatives
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