What Are You Provoking?

"And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:" Hebrews 10:24

When we typically use the word provoke, often it has a negative connotation to it. As an example, it can often be said that someone is going to provoke me to anger. While provoke does have a negative meaning today, in the English language from the time that the King James Bible was translated, the word simply meant to call into action. 

Here we find that the writer of Hebrews is encouraging us to be positively provoking one another. So many times it can be easy for us to fight or backbite against one another, but how much better would things be if we provoked one another to good works rather than bad? I think it would do us all good to welcome the provoking of others that are trying to push us toward "love and to good works" as the writer here was encouraging.