A couple months ago I read A.G. Sertillanges’ brilliant work, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods and I found no shortage of takeaways. The one quote that’s yet to leave me has rather profound application to the pastoral landscape in America.

In the preface Sertillanges writes,

We are often taken in by the way in which the masters speak of one another. They attack one another unmercifully, but they are fully conscious of one another’s value, and they attack often unintentionally.

Yet it remains true that general progress needs peace and co-operation, and that it is greatly hindered by pettiness of mind. In the face of others’ superiority, there is only one honorable attitude: to be glad of it, and then it becomes our own joy, our own good fortune

In an evangelical culture where it’s commonplace to poke theological and philosophical holes in “superior” pastors and preachers, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we purposed to “be glad” of their superiority.

Might not that simple exhortation be a powerful means of “maintaining the spirit of unity in the bond of peace?”