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Key Bible Verse: Never speak harshly to an older man, but appeal to him respectfully as though he were your own father. Talk to the younger men as you would to you own brothers. Treat the older women as you would your mother, and treat the younger women with all purity as your own sisters 1 Timothy 5:1-2). Bonus Reading: Titus 2:1-8

As sexual harassment lawsuits demonstrate, relationships at work are a minefield. You spend more time at the office than you do at home—more time with other people than with your own wife and kids or friends. Yet you're expected to maintain an air of distance from them, while being friendly, supportive, helpful, and encouraging.

What to do? Follow the rule Paul laid out in [today's Key Bible Verses]. If we all followed this directive as God intended, we'd save ourselves loads of trouble.

Say you're working on a team with three other colleagues. As a project nears completion, you find yourselves staying late—and the conversation growing more intimate.

The sinful you is tempted to engage in sexual repartee; fortunately, the godly you knows better. You realize that God wants you to see the woman sitting across from you as your sister or mother—you'd never talk that way in front of them—and the men sitting across from you as younger brothers, with whom you must set a good example.

—Stephen Graves & Thomas Addington in Deep Focus

My Response: If viewed as a family member, I'd have to treat ____ differently.

Thought to Apply: Man who man would be, must rule the empire of himself.—PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (English poet)

Adapted from Deep Focus (Jossey-Bass, 2004) by permission.

Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine. Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Teach me, Lord, to respond to the people you thrust into my life in ways that mature me, honor You, and build Your kingdom.

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