Because you do not continue running with them in this course to the same low sink of debauchery, they are puzzled and go on speaking abusively of you. But these people will render an account to the one ready to judge. —1 Pet. 4:4, 5, NW.

Do not mind being thought queer. This being thought eccentric and queer by this world is nothing over which to feel embarrassed. This being talked about with scorn and reproach is nothing over which to feel bad or to feel condemned. It is something over which to feel grateful to God, because we have the privilege of suffering reproach with Him and his Son. Imagine the way people must have talked about Noah and his family for not indulging in the violence, fleshly corruption and evil imaginations, schemes and hypocritical religion of that final century before the Flood. It was because Noah's course condemned the world. But their evil speaking and condemning of Noah and his household did not prove these in the wrong, for these survived the flood, but the evil speakers were flooded out of existence. W 9/15