A story I read many, many years ago that took place back in the late 1800s in the county of Mayfield, Kentucky.

And it was there a small church at that time, very small. In fact, it was so small, they only had two deacons in that church.

But those two deacons really hated each other.

I mean, they always opposed each other. These two deacons always fought with each other.

And one particular Sunday, one of those deacons, decided that he is going to put on the back

wall a wooden peg on which the pastor,

when he comes in, he can hang his hat. Well, when the other deacon found that out, he was

completely bent out of shape. How can this happen without my being consulted? How can it? And then the whole congregation, tiny as it was,

got all bent out of shape and they took sides. And that led to a church split. The new church

that was formed, the departing church, called themselves the anti-peg Baptist Church.

In fact, this is more real than you think.

In Romans 14, we saw how the Apostle Paul warns us against being bent out of shape and get all

hot and bothered over non-essentials, over things

unnecessary for salvation. And so he comes to Romans 16, and he says in effect that while you

should not get distracted, don't get bent out of shape, don't waste your time, don't waste

your life on things that are not necessary for salvation. But instead, what you really should do,

you should guard against false teaching. And that's exactly what he said. Verse 17, look at

verse 17 with me. I urge you, brethren,

to watch out for those who cause division and hold contrary teaching to the truth of the gospel.

Now here's a use of interpretation, not translation, but interpretation. It's saying if you're going

to get bent out of shape, and if you're going to get

hot and bothered about something, do it over serious matters, do it over very important issues

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