Do you have coworkers? Do you love them? If you say yes, is there evidence for your claim? Jesus had his Apostles, and He loved them. Paul had his coworkers, and he loved them. Missionaries have their coworkers, but sometimes the oil of love that makes the ministry run smoothly is missing and the relationships grate and clang. This is unfortunate, but it does not have to be. At any time, any of us can add the oil of love that will help the ministry hum quietly and efficiently.

The Command to Love Coworkers

Love for one’s coworkers is vital for many reasons, but the strongest is that God has commanded it. The standard He gives for imitation is Himself: “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another”¹ (John 13:34). He repeats this exhortation in John 15:12 and 15:1. Another reason is that effectiveness as a team depends upon it. When teammates are unaware of and unconcerned for each other, the team will rarely score, much less win the game. I remember watching a soccer game between young girls, one of whom was a granddaughter. She and another girl were chatting away near the goal, oblivious to what was happening with their team. You guessed it—the ball went straight into the net!

In contrast, love thinks of your missionary teammates and what they need from you to be successful. The nationals are watching and learning from us. What are they learning when they see strife and conflict among the missionary team? Furthermore, the nationals are also coworkers. Our ministry to them and with them will fail if we do not kindle and maintain a loving relationship. Finally, our children are watching and learning from our attitudes toward one another. What do they think of the missionaries’ treatment of one another?

The Challenge of Loving Coworkers

We laud the ideal of loving our coworkers, but making this a reality is full of challenges. Quoted above are Jesus’ exhortations to His disciples to love one another. He commanded them to love one another precisely because they were defective in this very aspect of spiritual maturity. Similarly, men we would call spiritual giants, Paul and Barnabas, learned that their love for one another would be tested. These men who had great mutual respect, who had labored together in life-threatening situations, had a sharp and apparently public disagreement. After their highly successful missionary partnership described in Acts 13–14, who would have anticipated their jarring separation (see Acts 15:36–39) over a disagreement regarding (ironically) another coworker’s fitness for ministry? Count on it, your coworker relationships will be tested, maybe even to the point of deciding whether to continue working together.

Thankfully, such breaches and failures in love can (and should) be healed. Paul’s later commendation of Mark indicates a deep respect and love for him. The coworker Paul rejected earlier is the very one he desires to be with him as he faces his last days in a Roman prison: “Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11).

Another example of differences in opinion is the situation with Euodias and Syntyche. Paul publicly (and for all of us since then to know it) rebuked them for not “agreeing in the Lord” (Philippians 4:1–2). Clearly their disharmony was a poor testimony of the love that should have existed. Note that the fault was on both sides, and the remedy was the responsibility of BOTH sides. Do you have any broken relationships with coworkers that could be healed with a new effort of love for those brothers or sisters?

While differences of opinion (such as Paul and Barnabas had) can strain our love for coworkers, other issues can also test our love. For example, personality differences can strain coworker relations. C. T. Studd was a go-getter, driving himself to the physical and even psychological limits of what any human can endure. That drive inspired some, but eventually also drove away many coworkers who could not handle his intolerance. The opposite approach to people can also hinder love. Some coworkers are hyper-sensitive and easily offended. They may brood on perceived or even real slights and think the worst of a coworker’s motives.

In addition to these faulty causes for the lack of love, there can sometimes be genuine grievances. Paul had real cause for irritation with the Corinthian church, but despite their loveless treatment of him he exclaims, “I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?” (2 Corinthians 12:15). In a missionary setting any of the following could happen, and they would likely cause genuine offense:

• Ungracious words/comments
• Unfair criticism
• Impatience with one’s sincere efforts
• Work unrecognized or attributed to someone else
• Someone else doing less but getting more recognition
• Intentionally ignored or left out of decision making

The immature missionary might take offense at any of these; the loving coworker should be able to overlook them or handle them in a controlled Biblical way.

The Manifestation of Loving Coworkers

Genuine coworker love will face strains, and sometimes its professions will prove to be false. But real love will manifest itself. Here are some ways to demonstrate love for your coworkers:

• Serve them. Do your part in the work and then some!
• Be friendly and thoughtful. Show genuine interest in your coworkers’ welfare and their concerns.
• Bear with them. Even when coworkers keep doing the same irritating things, BE PATIENT!
• Outdo others in showing honor to your coworkers: “Love one another with brotherly affection.”
• Highlight the excellencies of your coworkers and thus diminish their faults. Imitate the example of William Carey toward Joshua Marshman.

In the later years of the ministry of William Carey, Joshua Marshman, and William Ward, Marshman came under criticism from some younger missionaries and from some ill-informed believers back in England. In his comments Carey well illustrates the attitude of true love for a co-worker:

I and Brother Ward have now lived with Brother Marshman for 18 years. We have seen him in all situations, and I do not think either of us are blind to his faults. I have seen all his tortuousities and all his ambition, the two crimes Eustace charges him with. He is not a perfect man, any more than others, and I believe a certain kind of crooked policy is natural to him; it runs through all he does and says. He cannot walk straight on the road, he cannot preach straight forwards, but leads all his sentences with parentheses. I admit the whole of these things and every other Defect of his character; but I cannot caricature him, which I am sure our brethren do—that would be like publishing a caricature print of a man who had a long nose, by representing it as elongated to the extent of several yards. Brother M’s excellencies are such that his defects are almost concealed by them.… I wish I had half his piety, energy of mind, and zeal for the cause of God. These excellencies in my opinion so far unbalance all his defects that I am compelled to consider him as a Christian far above the common man.²