FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT - Dag Heward-Mills

READ: 2 Samuel 6:17-23

Yea, mine own familiar friend...hath lifted up his heel against me

Psalm 41:9

There are four groups of people that often suffer from familiarity.

First, your colleagues - those who know you closely - often suffer from familiarity. When I started my church as a medical student, very few of my colleagues were able to receive from me.

Secondly, we have relatives who also suffer from familiarity. Mine would say, "Do you remember me? I carried you when you were two years old. I knew your father very well." With this background, how can such people receive me as a man of God?

Pastor's wives are the third group who suffer from severe familiarity. Just like Michal, when everyone is impressed with their husbands, they are not. They say things like, "I know you", "No one knows you better than I do", "I am the only one who can tell you certain things!"

Close friends and associates are the fourth group of people who also experience familiarity. They have been around you for so long and they have seen your vicissitudes. Sometimes it would be better not to know someone closely in order not to develop an air of familiarity.

When people are familiar, they lose their respect and they cross boundaries they should never cross. Familiarity makes people say things they should never say. Familiarity breeds disloyalty.