(Note: We are down to the final 3 of our top 10 most-read posts of 2025. This post, coming in at #3, was first published 10 years ago. It ranks in the top 10 of over 4,100 posts in the past 13 years. When you read it, you will see why this post resonates with so many people and continues to be read and shared.)
I watched them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a busy town.
With a ho-heave-ho and lusty yell,
They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.
I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,
The men you’d hire if you had to build?”
He gave me a laugh and said, “No indeed!
Just common labor is all I need.
I can easily wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken a year to do.”
And I thought to myself as I went my way,
Which of these two roles have I tried to play?
Am I a builder who works with care,
Measuring life by the rule and square?
Am I shaping my deeds by a well-made plan,
Patiently doing the best I can?
Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,
Content with the labor of tearing down?
This poem by Edgar Guest raises an important and serious question for all of us: “Am I a builder or a wrecker?”
Wreckers in life are good at discouraging. Depressing. Demoralizing. Depreciating. And destroying. They know how to ruin friendships. Wreck homes. And undermine peace and unity in the Lord’s church. Sometimes it’s a subtle word. Maybe it’s an overt action. Juicy gossip. An unfounded charge. Or just a critical spirit that finds fault with everything. And everyone.
The attitude and actions of the wrecker are opposed to all that is good, godly, and Biblical. God desires that we be builders.
Builders in life are skilled at encouraging. Edifying. Educating. Enlightening. Energizing. And Elevating. They know how to bring a smile to your face. Lift your spirit. Warm your heart. Put a spring in your step. Their friendships are closer. Their homes are happier. And brethren are built up by their very presence. They know how to say a good word and offer a helping hand. And sow seeds of faith, hope, and love.
Christians are collectively characterized as “the house of God, “the building of God,” and the “Temple of God.” Peter says we like “living stones, are being built up a spiritual house” (1Pet.2:5). Jesus Christ is the foundation. But He is building up the church one stone at a time. And we are workers together with God in the building process.
The Bible teaches that the role of preachers, pastors and teachers is to equip Christians to do ministry “for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12). When that occurs Paul says it results in the “effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4:16).
Edification was both the cause and the effect of the spiritual growth and success of the first-century churches. Luke writes, “Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied” (Acts 9:31).
Building up and edifying should be the desire and work of every Christian. It was Paul’s inspired plea to first-century churches. “Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another,” he admonished the church at Rome (Rom. 14:19). To the Thessalonians, he penned, “Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing. (1Thess. 5:11). And to the Corinthian church, he simply said, “Let all things be done for edification” (1 Cor 14:26).
What about you? And me? It’s a fair question to ask: “Am I a builder or a wrecker?”
–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman
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