荣誉不属于批评者

荣誉不属于批评者；也不属于那些指出强者如何跌倒，或行动者如何能够做得更好的人。荣誉属于那真正站在竞技场中的人，他的脸被灰尘、汗水、和血污覆盖；他勇敢地奋斗，犯错误，屡败屡战，因为免于错误和失败的努力是不可能的；但他真正付出努力；他了解伟大的热情和深刻的奉献；他将他的生命用在值当的事业上；在最好的情况下他将会到达胜利的顶峰，而即使他失败，至少他曾经战斗到底，所以他的地位将永远高于那些既不知道成功也不知道失败的冷漠而懦弱的灵魂。 ——西奥多.罗斯福

昨天有读者留言如上。感谢这位弟兄正确地指出，“荣誉不属于批评者”，同时引起我注意这段话。

查了一下谷歌，这是罗斯福1910年在法国的一篇题为“共和国公民”的演讲中的一段。原文如下：

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

罗斯福总统演讲的主旨如下：

Today I shall speak to you on the subject of individual citizenship, the one subject of vital importance to you, my hearers, and to me and my countrymen, because you and we a great citizens of great democratic republics. A democratic republic such as ours – an effort to realize its full sense government by, of, and for the people – represents the most gigantic of all possible social experiments, the one fraught with great responsibilities alike for good and evil. The success or republics like yours and like ours means the glory, and our failure of despair, of mankind; and for you and for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme. Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or very few men, the quality of the leaders is all-important. If, under such governments, the quality of the rulers is high enough, then the nations for generations lead a brilliant career, and add substantially to the sum of world achievement, no matter how low the quality of average citizen; because the average citizen is an almost negligible quantity in working out the final results of that type of national greatness. But with you and us the case is different. With you here, and with us in my own home, in the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average women, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher.

如果我没有理解错，罗斯福总统的演说，是呼吁所有普通人都负起自己的责任，不要任凭少数几位领袖的操纵，因为在一个共和国，每个公民都有责任下到竞技场里奋斗而不是站来边上批评。他的主题是，普通人需要成为好的公民，因为国家的命运取决于普通人的努力。（引文中着重和强调是笔者所加。）

使徒行传 14:20b 第二天，同巴拿巴往特庇去， 21 对那城里的人传了福音，使好些人作门徒，就回路司得、以哥念、安提阿去， 22 坚固门徒的心，劝他们恒守所信的道；又说：我们进入神的国，必须经历许多艰难。 23 二人在各教会中选立了长老，又禁食祷告，就把他们交託所信的主。

23 And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

论到教会的结构，我曾经在重庆讲使徒行传14章20-23节。

这个故事说，保罗和巴拿巴第一次宣教旅行，走到特庇城，然后就原路返回到路司得，以哥念和安提阿城，并在各个教会选立了长老，就把他们交托所信的主。

有三点很明显：

第一，保罗和巴拿巴并不认为新信徒不能按立为长老。事实上，在提多书里，对于克里特岛新建立的教会，保罗提出的长老标准就没有“不得是初信”一条，因为教会需要长老，是一个不能拖延的事情。

其次，一个教会中，长老应当是两个或以上。记得当时我解释的时候，Jason就提出，从中文版看不出来他们按立了几个长老。所以我指着英文版对他说，they had appointed elders for them in every church, 从语法上看每个教会应当有多位长老。

第三，保罗和巴拿巴非常信任圣灵的工作，所以设立长老之后，祷告禁食，把他们交托给所信的主，就离开了。这就算是一个独立运作的教会了。

这个结论和Logos的现状差距太大，所以他们无法接受。Logos的状态是只有一个牧师，全权独裁。不管是什么地方，10年之中没有设立过任何长老（我就不谈执事的问题了）。

Jason的回应，大意是：神学我没学过，教会论太复杂，搞不懂。而且这事和个人生命关系不大，比起其他冲击性的信息，这件事似乎不太重要。

我说，神的话语放在你面前，我也按照我的能力尽力解释清楚了。端看我们愿不愿意顺服神的话语，或者只是顺服教会的传统，牧师的意见。

后来我们谈过好多次，不了了之。我认为决不能妥协的地方，倒是成为大家最不在意之处。

Logos后来的很多问题，如果不是因为Shin牧师一人独裁，我都可以认为不是问题。如果有些做法是长老执事会，或者成员集体通过的，或者至少是全体成员知情的，我都可以说没有太大的问题。

但是在教会制度上，仿照Shin老师的说法：教会2000年的历史上，没有一个牧师独裁多个地方教会，10年不设长老，很多地方10年也不设执事的。

荣誉不属于批评者。指出这些事情，并无荣誉可言，但是因为神的话语在这里，至少我们可以知道从前的做法是成功还是失败了，而不再做一个旁观的冷漠灵魂。

愿神的话语成为我们判断是非的标准。