Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.” Proverbs 9:7-9 ESV
A few weeks ago I wrote two blogs on the ministry of rebuke. The feedback that I have received has confirmed to me the need there is for the church to address this very important and necessary ministry both for the growth of the local church as well as the individual Christan. I feel this subject warrants a little more insight and discussion so I thought that I would focus on a beautiful example in the book of Acts.
In the book of Acts chapter 18 we read of a Jew named Apollos who was preaching in Ephesus. We read in verses 24-25 that, “He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue.”
At first glance it seems as though this man really has it going on; he is eloquent, competent, and orthodox in his doctrine about Jesus. But then in verse 26 we read, “When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately”. There was apparently something wrong with the teaching of Apollos. We don’t know what exactly it was but Priscilla and Aquila deemed it important enough to need correction. So they took him aside privately and instructed him in his error. As a result, we read in verse 27-28 the outcome of their correction, “When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus”.
What a great little story this about caring enough for someone to confront them as well as becoming a person who welcomes correction like Apollos. The fact is that like Apollos, all of us at one time or another need correction. As I have mentioned before, left to ourselves, our self perception is about as accurate as a carnival mirror. The only way to see yourself correctly is to be willing and able to allow others to hold the mirror of God’s word in front of you. Hebrews 3:12-13 exhorts us to, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
We cannot escape the fact that personal insight is the product of being in relationship with other Christians. We cannot achieve full insight into ourselves on our own since each one of us still have sin remaining in us and have pockets of spiritual blindness. The problem for us is that we can be spiritually blind and think that we can see quite well.
Being told you’re wrong or doing wrong is never fun. It is easy to get offended when people act as if they see us better than we see ourselves. Yet, without others helping me to see myself clearly, I will listen to my own arguments, believe my own lies, and buy into my own delusions. I will forget the Biblical warning that “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but the wise man listens to advice” (Proverbs 12:15).
How do you receive correction from others? There is a range of responses we can make when others correct us that can reveal much about our character. In Proverbs 9:7—9, we learn that the wise and the fool are measured, at least in part, by their response to correction and reproof.
There are at least four responses to Biblical correction that I would like you to think about:
1. The Response of the Wise Christian
The wise Christian loves correction and pursues correction. They desire to live right and in truth. Because they love God and desire to live to please Him, they welcome the lamp of others insight for their continual sanctifying growth even if it is not 100% accurate. There is a heightened response to oppose sin in the wise Christian.
2. The Response of the Growing Christian
The growing Christian appreciates correction or at other times can receive it, but then in his pride begrudgingly accept correction. The growing Christian will sometimes be open and sometimes get defensive. Sometimes self-deception will get in the way of their ability to receive your correction. Yet the Holy Spirit will eventually guide them into the truth. Other times they may even appear to not receive correction but after prayer and reflection will usually humble themselves and be glad that they were corrected. The growing Christian is progressing in their knowledge of their own sinfulness and awareness that the help of others is needed in their battle with sin.
3. The Response of the Foolish Christian
The foolish Christian is immature pride and annoyed by correction and critically judges those who correct. They will get angry with you, defensive, tell you that you have no right to judge them, say they are answerable only to God or the Holy Spirit; they can become bitter, resentful, a victim or martyr about their correction, and they might even go to another church if they don’t like the correction they received. The foolish Christian is immature in their understanding of sin and its gravity in their life. They think that they are right with God and are growing in their walk, but they are self-deceived. The foolish Christian will not grow or progress in their lives until they are willing to humble themselves before God and others to receive truth.
4. The Response of the Scoffer
Notice I did not even call the scoffer a Christian. That is because the Proverb writers generally associate the scoffer with the wicked. The scoffer hates correction. They simply keep a relational distance from others in order to safeguard that nobody knows them. Therefore, no one will ever be qualified, able, or permitted to speak into their life. In their pride and rebellion they are unwilling to submit themselves to God and would rather live self-deceptively in their sins. As Aldous Huxley said, “Man cannot take too much reality.”
The reality for all of us is that we need to live our lives centered on the cross. The reality of the cross brings us to the place where we are reproved for our sin most directly. Looking at the cross of Christ shows God’s displeasure and wrath against all sin, including the sins that we refuse to see and others we do see. The cross devastates all of my foolish pride, self deception, and lies. Correction from others is not devastating to those who have already been devastated by the cross.
On our own none of us will ever be competent to recognize our own sin; we will always need help. Never forget that others see what you do not. By God’s loving grace others can impart clarity to help protect you from the hardening effects of sin. They are a gift from God to you in your battle against sin and you will never grow out of this need.
Be wise, thoughtful, and prayerful when you receive correction from God through others. When you humble yourself God will supply the blessing He promises. "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you” (1 Peter 5:5-6).
Now, let us consider, Priscilla and Aquila and the manner in which they corrected Apollos. Priscilla and Aquila had "heard" Apollos as he "began to speak boldly in the synagogue". I'm certain they were impressed with the "eloquence" and charisma of this young man, how he shared Biblical truth in a "mighty" and compelling way. They saw his heart and discerned his potential for Jesus Christ and the furtherance of His Kingdom. Yet, they quickly realized that although Apollos spoke "accurately" in one sense, his understanding of Jesus was very limited. To not help him would invariably dishonor God by giving people an incomplete Gospel and one lacking understanding, as well as hurting Apollos’ effectiveness.
Observe how they instructed Apollos more fully in Christian truth. Notice the way Aquila and Priscilla were patient and perceptive. First, they "took him aside." The NIV translates, "they invited him to their home." They took him aside privately.
Here are some Biblical principles to apply. First, do not tell others about other people’s sins, flaws, or issues you have with them period! Secondly, do not tell others that you are going to confront someone. Thirdly, do not confront others through email, long rebukes on answer machines, Facebook, text messages, through a letter, or telling someone else and having them do it for you. It is unbiblical, ineffective, cowardly, unloving, unfair, and inappropriate; and more often than not hurts and confuses the recipient.
Jesus instructs us in the proper manner in which to confront someone: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone” (Matthew 18:15). Notice our Lord’s clear instruction for correction. Jesus says “Go to the person”, “tell him his fault”, and “do it privately between you and him alone”. The key word to consider is the word “sins.” The word means missing the mark. The question is what mark Jesus is referring to. Is it God’s mark of righteousness or man’s mark of personal standards, personal affronts, or petty grievances? This qualifier alone would probably eliminate most of our confrontations. In the Old Testament, the word “sins” implied transgression or the breaking of the law. To break the law meant that a person was trespassing into areas that were unlawful and immoral. To break the law meant one was missing the mark of God’s holiness. In short, a clear violation of God’s word. In Apollo’s case, it must have been in his erroneous teaching. Romans 3:23 takes Christians one step beyond the law to tell them that when they sin, they invariably fall short of the glory of God. Since sin mars and distorts the reality of God; it means that all sin is about the diminishing and dishonoring of God and His glory. (Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 10:31; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18).
There are several other scriptural guidelines for confrontation: Galatians 6:1, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.” Hebrews 3:12-13, “See to it (We are responsible and accountable), brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage (Come alongside to help) one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.”
Priscilla and Aquila were obedient to the scriptures in confronting Apollos and did it appropriately. Priscilla and Aquila teach us the importance of the why and how of Godly correction. They were concerned about the means as well as the end effect of what they were trying to do. They obviously were gentle and tactful. They practiced what R.C. Sproul calls “The Judgment of Charity”. It is the right evaluation of others tempered with love. It is simply a judgment of love that causes us to speak the truth in an attitude and spirit of love. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). In their humility, they saw Apollos from a divine perspective, and they allowed this perspective to determine their attitude and approach towards him. They cared for Apollos and they loved God and His truth. What a beautiful balance. Paul calls it “Speaking the truth in love…” (Ephesians 4:15).
This is the key to effective confrontation. Some people focus upon speaking the truth and are harsh, critical, and ineffective in their confronting. Others focus so much on the loving part that they end up not confronting because they do not want to hurt or make the person feel bad. As a result, the person is never encouraged to face their sin and to be restored.
This Godly couple "explained to him the way of God more accurately." They "filled in the blanks" in his theology and experience. They were able to share with Apollos what he needed to know instead of confronting him harshly, they corrected him lovingly. Aquila and Priscilla had the essential ingredients for Biblical, Godly confrontation: tenderheartedness and tough mindedness. They were tender-hearted in their love and concern for their brother Apollos, and they were also tough minded in their love for God and truth.
As a result of their confrontation and correction, look at the outcome; it is a good one! Apollos became a great help to those who had believed, refuted the Jews in public, and proved the deity of Christ from the Scriptures. The on fire Apollos, got even more on fire! He proceeds to have a wider ministry. In 1 Corinthians 1-4 Paul will write appreciatively of Apollos ministry in Corinth and will speak of him as a fellow worker in God’s field. “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.”(1 Corinthians 3:6) The fruitfulness of this man’s life was the result of humble confrontation by Priscilla and Aquila, and by Apollos humble reception of their correction.
May the Lord Grace each one of us to humbly receive and give correction for the glory of God and the souls of others,
Pastor Bill
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
LEARNING TO LOOK ALONG THE BEAM INSTEAD OF AT THE BEAM
"When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others mocking said, "They are filled with new wine." Acts 2:1-13 ESV
I must confess that I am a born skeptic. My default response when I hear of miracles or signs and wonders is to immediately question, doubt, and look for a rational explanation for what I see or hear of. Now don't get me wrong,I have witnessed, experienced, and participated in many supernatural events over the course of my life and ministry. I have had visions, seen miraculous inexplicable healings, and have had extraordinary encounters with God. But...I have still been a skeptic and doubted.
I have gone to Pentecostal/Vineyard meetings and have watched behaviors that in my skepticism have cynically been determined by me to be nothing but learned behavior, auto-suggestion, manipulation, group psychology, hypnotism, wish fulfillment, self fulfilled prophecy, cultural expectations, parroted, mimicked or learned behavior, demonic, hysteria,and just plain flesh. In short, I have been able to in my own thinking, to explain away supernatural behavior and phenomenon through some combination of my own psychological or sociological theories of what was really going on.
I have been one confused person. On one hand, I have professed a theology of the reality of the supernatural, the miraculous, the perpetuity of the gifts, the power of God, healing, etc.; while on the other hand, generally denying most everything I have seen that does not fit into my grid and paradigm of how God operates in His universe.
Two things have happened to me that have changed my way of thinking. First, I was at a meeting a month ago where twice the Holy Spirit fell upon me and I went down on the floor. You have to understand, I don't do going down on the floor ( i.e. being slain in the spirit). I have been in meetings where everyone went down but me and I proudly boasted to myself that I did not succumb to charismania and emotionalism. But that night , something supernatural happened to me. Shortly after this, in front of the whole church, the pastor spoke words over me that could not have been spoken except by the Holy Spirit. He did not know me from Adam and read my mail so to speak. I instantly knew that God was talking to me. Finally, a group of people did nothing but gently and silently lay hands on me in prayer and the next thing I knew, in front of the whole church I was laughing hysterically and weeping tears at the same time. my pride could not stand it. I did not know what was happening to me, except that the Lord was on me and flooding my broken, despairing heart with overwhelming joy. My life has not been the same since that night.
The second thing that happened to me was reading C.S. Lewis. Lewis once wrote a profound essay titled "Transposition". In his essay, Lewis suggests, that there is a continuity between things that are natural and things that are supernatural; the reappearance of the supernatural in all the elements that make up our natural life. So the supernatural, for example in my life, expressed itself through human vehicles of laughter and falling down on the floor.
Lewis talks about the phenomenon of tongues on the day of Pentecost. An undeniable spiritual event , the descent of the Holy Spirit, expressed itself in the strange phenomenon of speaking in another language. To the bystanders at Pentecost it resembled to them and their understanding, drunkenness; today many scientific or rational observers would call it hysteria, babbling, or some nervous disorder. So how can such natural actions like falling down on the floor, laughing hysterically, or the movement of vocal cords express the supernatural power and indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God?
Lewis suggested the analogy of a beam of light in a dark tool shed. When he first entered a shed, he saw a beam and looked at the luminous band of brightness filled with floating specks of dust. But when he moved over to the beam and looked along it, he gained a very different perspective. Suddenly he saw not the beam, but, framed in the window of the shed, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 93 million miles away, the sun. Looking at the beam and looking along the beam are quite different.
The "post-modern" American church excels in techniques of looking at the beam. Another word for this is "reductionism". Reductionism is the process of reducing human behavior down to rational and explicable natural reasons.
This modern world is so adept at looking at the beam from every angle. It is a world hostile to faith. I know that I was and in the process I defined God right out of the equation and many Christians have done the same. Is it no wonder why we are seeing and hearing of amazing moves of God in Asia, Africa, and South America while the church in Europe has become irrelevant and non existent?
I am amazed that societies that take for granted the existence of an unseen supernatural world, seem to have no problem seeing who is along and behind the beam of a thunderstorm, a sunrise, a healing, a depression, a sickness, or unbroken habits. But we reductionists can explain them all and reduce all phenomenon to their component parts.
On the great day of Pentecost, think about how many missed God because of their reductionism? Are we doing the same? Reductionism has caused many of us to be trapped in our woodshed(Borrowing from Lewis's analogy) and miss going along the beam the glory of the illuminated trees, the sky, all the way to the sun! We will never have a sense of the greatness and power of God as long as we stay in the natural and do not follow along the beam to the supernatural. We will lose the "Godness" of God and his ability to do as Paul says in Ephesians 3;20, "far above anything we can ask or even imagine, according the power that works within us..." I want to challenge you to begin looking at the beam of a person falling down, speaking in a tongue, laughing in church, shaking, crying, wailing, etc. ; but also to be looking along that beam and see that behind human behavior (that may seem weird or uncomfortable to you), the Holy Spirit and the power of God are at work.
Looking from a reductionist perspective as I did, most spiritual phenomenon had a natural explanation. Soon a sinner repenting was contrived emotionalism; the day of Pentecost for first century witnesses, an outbreak of drunkenness; being slain the spirit, self hypnosis; but, faith, looking along the beam, sees natural acts as sacred carriers of the supernatural power of God.
As I have begun looking along the beam, I still get uncomfortable with some things that I see.I find myself resorting to my default reductionism at times. When I do that, I am missing out on God being God to His glory. The fact is that I need to learn from the Day of Pentecost. The day of Pentecost is a perfect picture of the beam and the source: God's voice on earth, speaking through human beings in a manner that there could not even comprehend.
When I look along the beam I am beginning to see God along the beam of the weird stuff that I don't understand. I have chosen to begin looking along the beam for now on. I want to be open to God being God and looking for His hand behind the natural events I see. I want to be okay if I don't understand the beam if along the way it is leading to the living God. I do not want to go back to a safe, controlled, confined, doubting, skeptical, unbelief any more. If I stay on just looking at the beam in the woodshed I will miss the glory of the Son of God who comes into time and our natural world and our human bodies and does strange, wonderful, and marvelous supernatural things in our world.
Looking along the beam,
Pastor Bill
I must confess that I am a born skeptic. My default response when I hear of miracles or signs and wonders is to immediately question, doubt, and look for a rational explanation for what I see or hear of. Now don't get me wrong,I have witnessed, experienced, and participated in many supernatural events over the course of my life and ministry. I have had visions, seen miraculous inexplicable healings, and have had extraordinary encounters with God. But...I have still been a skeptic and doubted.
I have gone to Pentecostal/Vineyard meetings and have watched behaviors that in my skepticism have cynically been determined by me to be nothing but learned behavior, auto-suggestion, manipulation, group psychology, hypnotism, wish fulfillment, self fulfilled prophecy, cultural expectations, parroted, mimicked or learned behavior, demonic, hysteria,and just plain flesh. In short, I have been able to in my own thinking, to explain away supernatural behavior and phenomenon through some combination of my own psychological or sociological theories of what was really going on.
I have been one confused person. On one hand, I have professed a theology of the reality of the supernatural, the miraculous, the perpetuity of the gifts, the power of God, healing, etc.; while on the other hand, generally denying most everything I have seen that does not fit into my grid and paradigm of how God operates in His universe.
Two things have happened to me that have changed my way of thinking. First, I was at a meeting a month ago where twice the Holy Spirit fell upon me and I went down on the floor. You have to understand, I don't do going down on the floor ( i.e. being slain in the spirit). I have been in meetings where everyone went down but me and I proudly boasted to myself that I did not succumb to charismania and emotionalism. But that night , something supernatural happened to me. Shortly after this, in front of the whole church, the pastor spoke words over me that could not have been spoken except by the Holy Spirit. He did not know me from Adam and read my mail so to speak. I instantly knew that God was talking to me. Finally, a group of people did nothing but gently and silently lay hands on me in prayer and the next thing I knew, in front of the whole church I was laughing hysterically and weeping tears at the same time. my pride could not stand it. I did not know what was happening to me, except that the Lord was on me and flooding my broken, despairing heart with overwhelming joy. My life has not been the same since that night.
The second thing that happened to me was reading C.S. Lewis. Lewis once wrote a profound essay titled "Transposition". In his essay, Lewis suggests, that there is a continuity between things that are natural and things that are supernatural; the reappearance of the supernatural in all the elements that make up our natural life. So the supernatural, for example in my life, expressed itself through human vehicles of laughter and falling down on the floor.
Lewis talks about the phenomenon of tongues on the day of Pentecost. An undeniable spiritual event , the descent of the Holy Spirit, expressed itself in the strange phenomenon of speaking in another language. To the bystanders at Pentecost it resembled to them and their understanding, drunkenness; today many scientific or rational observers would call it hysteria, babbling, or some nervous disorder. So how can such natural actions like falling down on the floor, laughing hysterically, or the movement of vocal cords express the supernatural power and indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God?
Lewis suggested the analogy of a beam of light in a dark tool shed. When he first entered a shed, he saw a beam and looked at the luminous band of brightness filled with floating specks of dust. But when he moved over to the beam and looked along it, he gained a very different perspective. Suddenly he saw not the beam, but, framed in the window of the shed, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 93 million miles away, the sun. Looking at the beam and looking along the beam are quite different.
The "post-modern" American church excels in techniques of looking at the beam. Another word for this is "reductionism". Reductionism is the process of reducing human behavior down to rational and explicable natural reasons.
This modern world is so adept at looking at the beam from every angle. It is a world hostile to faith. I know that I was and in the process I defined God right out of the equation and many Christians have done the same. Is it no wonder why we are seeing and hearing of amazing moves of God in Asia, Africa, and South America while the church in Europe has become irrelevant and non existent?
I am amazed that societies that take for granted the existence of an unseen supernatural world, seem to have no problem seeing who is along and behind the beam of a thunderstorm, a sunrise, a healing, a depression, a sickness, or unbroken habits. But we reductionists can explain them all and reduce all phenomenon to their component parts.
On the great day of Pentecost, think about how many missed God because of their reductionism? Are we doing the same? Reductionism has caused many of us to be trapped in our woodshed(Borrowing from Lewis's analogy) and miss going along the beam the glory of the illuminated trees, the sky, all the way to the sun! We will never have a sense of the greatness and power of God as long as we stay in the natural and do not follow along the beam to the supernatural. We will lose the "Godness" of God and his ability to do as Paul says in Ephesians 3;20, "far above anything we can ask or even imagine, according the power that works within us..." I want to challenge you to begin looking at the beam of a person falling down, speaking in a tongue, laughing in church, shaking, crying, wailing, etc. ; but also to be looking along that beam and see that behind human behavior (that may seem weird or uncomfortable to you), the Holy Spirit and the power of God are at work.
Looking from a reductionist perspective as I did, most spiritual phenomenon had a natural explanation. Soon a sinner repenting was contrived emotionalism; the day of Pentecost for first century witnesses, an outbreak of drunkenness; being slain the spirit, self hypnosis; but, faith, looking along the beam, sees natural acts as sacred carriers of the supernatural power of God.
As I have begun looking along the beam, I still get uncomfortable with some things that I see.I find myself resorting to my default reductionism at times. When I do that, I am missing out on God being God to His glory. The fact is that I need to learn from the Day of Pentecost. The day of Pentecost is a perfect picture of the beam and the source: God's voice on earth, speaking through human beings in a manner that there could not even comprehend.
When I look along the beam I am beginning to see God along the beam of the weird stuff that I don't understand. I have chosen to begin looking along the beam for now on. I want to be open to God being God and looking for His hand behind the natural events I see. I want to be okay if I don't understand the beam if along the way it is leading to the living God. I do not want to go back to a safe, controlled, confined, doubting, skeptical, unbelief any more. If I stay on just looking at the beam in the woodshed I will miss the glory of the Son of God who comes into time and our natural world and our human bodies and does strange, wonderful, and marvelous supernatural things in our world.
Looking along the beam,
Pastor Bill
Monday, August 15, 2011
THE MINISTRY OF REBUKE Part 2: Giving and Receiving Rebuke
I have been very pleased with the response to last week's blog as I discussed the "why" and the "when" of the very necessary and highly valued "ministry of rebuke". It is one thing to know why we ought to rebuke others and be rebuked, as well as the timing of rebuke; but it is another thing to know how to give rebuke and how to receive rebuke. This makes or breaks us and others.
I must confess I have given many impetuous, impulsive, anger driven, reaction based, selfish, harsh, unkind, destruction aimed, ineffective, hurtful, and sinful rebukes in my 37 years of being a Christian. I can also say I have received many of the same from my friends, family, and brothers and sisters in Christ over the years. That is why I am so concerned about the how of giving rebukes and the how of receiving rebukes.
How to Rebuke
1. Know who you are.
Some people hate conflict. They probably need more of it. Others run into it. They need to chill. If you can’t wait for your next opportunity to rebuke, take a little Sabbath from being the Holy Spirit in everyone’s life. It’s like C.S. Lewis said, the hard sayings of Jesus are only good for those who find them hard. Anyone who is eager to rebuke is not ready to do so.
2. Check your heart.
Are you getting in his face so you can serve your notice of indignation, or are you going to serve their sanctification? This is utterly key. There are many times that I have disqualified myself from rebuking someone because my heart was not right towards that person. The key principle that we find in the word is from the apostle Paul who exhorts us to be “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). In short, to rightly rebuke we must love God, love God’s truth, and love people!
Consider this wisdom: “Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding” (Prov. 17:27). And, “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention” (Prov. 15:18). In other words, check yourself before you wreck yourself. Or as James puts it, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person by quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20).
3. Check your eye. As in, is there a plank in it.
Jesus says in Matthew 7:1-5, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”
Jesus is warning us about the danger of wrong judgment: the general human tendency to see the faults of others while casually overlooking our own. He is saying, don't be disapproving. Don't conduct your life with a judgmental or negative or critical attitude. In this sense, to judge means: to assess others suspiciously, to impute worst case motives on someone, to find petty faults, to seek out periodic weaknesses and failures, to cultivate a destructive and condemning spirit, to presume a position of authority over another. In other words, your motive is crucial!
You judge someone wrongly when you assume that you know all of the pertinent facts and motives behind the person’s words or actions. You judge someone wrongly when you set up human standards, rather than holding to God’s word as the standard. You judge someone wrongly when you do not first judge your own sin before trying to help him with his sin. That is Jesus’ point in Matthew 7:1-5. He does not say that it is wrong to help your brother get the speck out of his eye, but rather, before you try to do so, deal with the log in your own eye. If you went to an eye doctor to remove a speck from your eye and he had a log protruding from his eye, you would not want him to touch your eye! And, from the other point of view, if you haven’t removed the log from your own eye, you will come across as arrogant and lacking in compassion if you try to help a brother with his speck. Removing our own logs has a way of humbling us! Jesus says we see clearly.
Oh how often when I see clearly, the specks are not even there. And if they are then grace and love radically affect how I deal with my brother’s speck! By speaking about judging your brother in this way Jesus is reminding us of the profound and deep relationship that God has brought us with the one whom we are judging. This suggests a beautiful and radical new way that we are to relate to one another in the body of Christ. This is especially important in regards to our attitudes towards one another. If my fellow believers are viewed as chosen by God, that God has previously acted on them and is presently acting on them, if they are ones for whom Christ died, who are loved and cherished by God, and with whom we will spend eternity with in heaven, we will not only guard our words about them, we will guard our thoughts about them! If we are going to live humbly before God, and therefore live in the light of his Holiness and our sinfulness and if we are going to be instruments of grace towards our brothers and sisters in the power of grace, then we must abandon the deeply rooted sinful practice of judging others. Oh how God wants to make you the kind of person who cares for others instead of condemning others.
4. Don’t be loud if you can be soft.
Galatians 6:1 says restore your brother gently. 2 Timothy 2:25 tells us to correct our opponents with gentleness. A gentle answer, Proverbs tells us, turns away wrath (15:1). It was always Paul’s desire to come in a spirit of gentleness; the rod was only a last resort (1 Corinthians 4:21; cf. 2 Corinthians 13:10). You see a pattern here? Try gentleness first. Don’t be the one whose rash words are like sword thrusts (Proverbs 12:18).
Immature Christians only have one decibel level. Some don’t know how to whisper and some don’t know how to scream. The goal is to administer the rebuke as softly and gently as possible. In most situations, the trumpet blast should come only after you have tried the flute first. Don’t launch the nukes at the first sign of trouble. Try diplomacy, then sanctions, then warnings, then strategic targets, then air, then sea, then ground, then start consulting about the big red button. Don’t punch them in the gut if an arm around the shoulder will do the trick.
5. Ask yourself, will this rebuke give grace to this person.
The apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4:29, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear". The bottom line of giving correction biblically is that the person we rebuke is given grace by our rebuke: soul edifying, life transforming, and God glorifying.
6. Above all, we need to strive for what R.C. Sproul calls The Judgment of Charity.
It is the evaluation of others tempered with love. It is simply a judgment of love. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). Charles Simeon once said, “let us sit on the seat of love instead of judgment.” It is the golden rule with skin on it. The judgment of charity gives the benefit of doubt while fleeing the temptation toward heartless and cruel denunciation. The man or woman with this quality makes allowances for the weaknesses and ignorance of others and takes the kindest perspective whenever possible. The Christian loves to make allowances for the weaknesses of others, knowing how great need he stands in constantly having made allowance made for himself by both God and man.
How to Receive Rebuke
1. Consider the source.
Ask yourself: is this rebuke coming from someone I trust and respect? Is it from someone I know and someone who knows me? Is this person out to lovingly and sincerely help, restore, and correct me, or are they out to hurt, control, or wound me? Is this person someone to whom I am accountable–a spouse, an elder or pastor,a closely knit friend, brother or sister that you are in fellowship with, or an employer? We can’t take every rebuke to heart. But ignoring every unflattering assessment is foolish too.
2. Consider the substance.
Pray about the hard word spoken to you. Is there any substance to what they say? Is this an issue that can be demonstrated by scripture that needs correcting? Ask others what they think. Maybe this rebuke needs as Spurgeon says, your blind eye and deaf ear. Jesus was rebuked by Peter, so not every correction hits the mark. If you take an honest, humble look at the rebuke and it does not seem to fit. Don’t wear it. Forget about it. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4 “My conscience is clean.” That did not mean he was necessarily acquitted before God, but as far as he could tell, he had not sinned. So he moved on.
But sometimes we do screw up. Even the best of men are men at best. I doubt many of us are over-rebuked. Most of us, myself included, would probably do well to receive more specific correction. So consider the source, consider the substance, and be prepared to grow.
3. Consider the sin.
We will never benefit from rebuke (and our friends will be scared to tell us the truth) if we are never open to the possibility that we might have sin that needs rebuking. i have found many in the body of Christ say how teachable they are until they are rebuked. There are few things more necessary in a child of God than being teachable. “A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool” (Proverbs 17:10). Or more to the point: “He who hates reproof is stupid” (Proverbs 12:1).
C.J. Mahaney tells the story of a man in a thousand dollar suit, driving a Ferrari, wearing a Rolex watch who he observed eating lunch one day, got up and forgot to wipe the cream cheese off his mustache. Mahaney wondered if he went to his next meeting with the cream cheese there on his face. Did anyone tell him? Who? What if no one did? The fact is we all have cream cheese moments in our life.As a matter of fact, you have cream cheese on your face right now. You may not see it, but it is there. Others see it clearly and you need their help to identify its presence. Our self perception is about as accurate at times as a carnival mirror. If we are going to see ourselves clearly, there are times we need others to hold up the mirror of God's word in front of us in order to help us to see.
Without others help to see myself clearly, I'll listen to my own arguments, believe my own lies, and buy into my own delusions. I'll forget God's warning in Proverbs 12:15, "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,but a wise man listens to advice".
4. Consider the Savior.
Jesus sees all your sins right now. Why not see them for yourself? The way of godliness is the way of confession, cleansing, and change. One of the reasons we are not really changing, is because we are not really confessing. And we are not really confessing because we are not really seeing. And we are not really seeing because few of us love enough to give a rebuke and very few are humble enough to receive one.
But in the end, we have a lot to gain with rebuke–a restored brother, a conquered sin, a greater sense of the Savior’s love–and we have got nothing to lose but our pride.
Learning about giving and receiving rebuke in truth and love,
Pastor Bill
I must confess I have given many impetuous, impulsive, anger driven, reaction based, selfish, harsh, unkind, destruction aimed, ineffective, hurtful, and sinful rebukes in my 37 years of being a Christian. I can also say I have received many of the same from my friends, family, and brothers and sisters in Christ over the years. That is why I am so concerned about the how of giving rebukes and the how of receiving rebukes.
How to Rebuke
1. Know who you are.
Some people hate conflict. They probably need more of it. Others run into it. They need to chill. If you can’t wait for your next opportunity to rebuke, take a little Sabbath from being the Holy Spirit in everyone’s life. It’s like C.S. Lewis said, the hard sayings of Jesus are only good for those who find them hard. Anyone who is eager to rebuke is not ready to do so.
2. Check your heart.
Are you getting in his face so you can serve your notice of indignation, or are you going to serve their sanctification? This is utterly key. There are many times that I have disqualified myself from rebuking someone because my heart was not right towards that person. The key principle that we find in the word is from the apostle Paul who exhorts us to be “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). In short, to rightly rebuke we must love God, love God’s truth, and love people!
Consider this wisdom: “Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding” (Prov. 17:27). And, “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention” (Prov. 15:18). In other words, check yourself before you wreck yourself. Or as James puts it, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person by quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20).
3. Check your eye. As in, is there a plank in it.
Jesus says in Matthew 7:1-5, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”
Jesus is warning us about the danger of wrong judgment: the general human tendency to see the faults of others while casually overlooking our own. He is saying, don't be disapproving. Don't conduct your life with a judgmental or negative or critical attitude. In this sense, to judge means: to assess others suspiciously, to impute worst case motives on someone, to find petty faults, to seek out periodic weaknesses and failures, to cultivate a destructive and condemning spirit, to presume a position of authority over another. In other words, your motive is crucial!
You judge someone wrongly when you assume that you know all of the pertinent facts and motives behind the person’s words or actions. You judge someone wrongly when you set up human standards, rather than holding to God’s word as the standard. You judge someone wrongly when you do not first judge your own sin before trying to help him with his sin. That is Jesus’ point in Matthew 7:1-5. He does not say that it is wrong to help your brother get the speck out of his eye, but rather, before you try to do so, deal with the log in your own eye. If you went to an eye doctor to remove a speck from your eye and he had a log protruding from his eye, you would not want him to touch your eye! And, from the other point of view, if you haven’t removed the log from your own eye, you will come across as arrogant and lacking in compassion if you try to help a brother with his speck. Removing our own logs has a way of humbling us! Jesus says we see clearly.
Oh how often when I see clearly, the specks are not even there. And if they are then grace and love radically affect how I deal with my brother’s speck! By speaking about judging your brother in this way Jesus is reminding us of the profound and deep relationship that God has brought us with the one whom we are judging. This suggests a beautiful and radical new way that we are to relate to one another in the body of Christ. This is especially important in regards to our attitudes towards one another. If my fellow believers are viewed as chosen by God, that God has previously acted on them and is presently acting on them, if they are ones for whom Christ died, who are loved and cherished by God, and with whom we will spend eternity with in heaven, we will not only guard our words about them, we will guard our thoughts about them! If we are going to live humbly before God, and therefore live in the light of his Holiness and our sinfulness and if we are going to be instruments of grace towards our brothers and sisters in the power of grace, then we must abandon the deeply rooted sinful practice of judging others. Oh how God wants to make you the kind of person who cares for others instead of condemning others.
4. Don’t be loud if you can be soft.
Galatians 6:1 says restore your brother gently. 2 Timothy 2:25 tells us to correct our opponents with gentleness. A gentle answer, Proverbs tells us, turns away wrath (15:1). It was always Paul’s desire to come in a spirit of gentleness; the rod was only a last resort (1 Corinthians 4:21; cf. 2 Corinthians 13:10). You see a pattern here? Try gentleness first. Don’t be the one whose rash words are like sword thrusts (Proverbs 12:18).
Immature Christians only have one decibel level. Some don’t know how to whisper and some don’t know how to scream. The goal is to administer the rebuke as softly and gently as possible. In most situations, the trumpet blast should come only after you have tried the flute first. Don’t launch the nukes at the first sign of trouble. Try diplomacy, then sanctions, then warnings, then strategic targets, then air, then sea, then ground, then start consulting about the big red button. Don’t punch them in the gut if an arm around the shoulder will do the trick.
5. Ask yourself, will this rebuke give grace to this person.
The apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4:29, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear". The bottom line of giving correction biblically is that the person we rebuke is given grace by our rebuke: soul edifying, life transforming, and God glorifying.
6. Above all, we need to strive for what R.C. Sproul calls The Judgment of Charity.
It is the evaluation of others tempered with love. It is simply a judgment of love. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). Charles Simeon once said, “let us sit on the seat of love instead of judgment.” It is the golden rule with skin on it. The judgment of charity gives the benefit of doubt while fleeing the temptation toward heartless and cruel denunciation. The man or woman with this quality makes allowances for the weaknesses and ignorance of others and takes the kindest perspective whenever possible. The Christian loves to make allowances for the weaknesses of others, knowing how great need he stands in constantly having made allowance made for himself by both God and man.
How to Receive Rebuke
1. Consider the source.
Ask yourself: is this rebuke coming from someone I trust and respect? Is it from someone I know and someone who knows me? Is this person out to lovingly and sincerely help, restore, and correct me, or are they out to hurt, control, or wound me? Is this person someone to whom I am accountable–a spouse, an elder or pastor,a closely knit friend, brother or sister that you are in fellowship with, or an employer? We can’t take every rebuke to heart. But ignoring every unflattering assessment is foolish too.
2. Consider the substance.
Pray about the hard word spoken to you. Is there any substance to what they say? Is this an issue that can be demonstrated by scripture that needs correcting? Ask others what they think. Maybe this rebuke needs as Spurgeon says, your blind eye and deaf ear. Jesus was rebuked by Peter, so not every correction hits the mark. If you take an honest, humble look at the rebuke and it does not seem to fit. Don’t wear it. Forget about it. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4 “My conscience is clean.” That did not mean he was necessarily acquitted before God, but as far as he could tell, he had not sinned. So he moved on.
But sometimes we do screw up. Even the best of men are men at best. I doubt many of us are over-rebuked. Most of us, myself included, would probably do well to receive more specific correction. So consider the source, consider the substance, and be prepared to grow.
3. Consider the sin.
We will never benefit from rebuke (and our friends will be scared to tell us the truth) if we are never open to the possibility that we might have sin that needs rebuking. i have found many in the body of Christ say how teachable they are until they are rebuked. There are few things more necessary in a child of God than being teachable. “A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool” (Proverbs 17:10). Or more to the point: “He who hates reproof is stupid” (Proverbs 12:1).
C.J. Mahaney tells the story of a man in a thousand dollar suit, driving a Ferrari, wearing a Rolex watch who he observed eating lunch one day, got up and forgot to wipe the cream cheese off his mustache. Mahaney wondered if he went to his next meeting with the cream cheese there on his face. Did anyone tell him? Who? What if no one did? The fact is we all have cream cheese moments in our life.As a matter of fact, you have cream cheese on your face right now. You may not see it, but it is there. Others see it clearly and you need their help to identify its presence. Our self perception is about as accurate at times as a carnival mirror. If we are going to see ourselves clearly, there are times we need others to hold up the mirror of God's word in front of us in order to help us to see.
Without others help to see myself clearly, I'll listen to my own arguments, believe my own lies, and buy into my own delusions. I'll forget God's warning in Proverbs 12:15, "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,but a wise man listens to advice".
4. Consider the Savior.
Jesus sees all your sins right now. Why not see them for yourself? The way of godliness is the way of confession, cleansing, and change. One of the reasons we are not really changing, is because we are not really confessing. And we are not really confessing because we are not really seeing. And we are not really seeing because few of us love enough to give a rebuke and very few are humble enough to receive one.
But in the end, we have a lot to gain with rebuke–a restored brother, a conquered sin, a greater sense of the Savior’s love–and we have got nothing to lose but our pride.
Learning about giving and receiving rebuke in truth and love,
Pastor Bill
Monday, August 8, 2011
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MINISTRY OF REBUKE? Part 1
Have you been rebuked by anyone lately? Have you rebuked anyone lately? What was the outcome? I have been the blessed recipient of some very truthful and loving rebukes over the past 15 months (To which I am exceedingly grateful) and I have also needed to give some rebukes as well. I have also noticed that in attending other churches and fellowships that the body of Christ is very weak in this area. In the body of Christ I have found to be two kinds of Christians: those who like to rebuke and do it often and those who are scared to rebuke and never do it. The irony is both kinds of Christians are prone to sin. Those who enjoy giving a good rebuke are usually the least qualified to give one, while those who would rather do almost anything else are often the very people who would serve the body best with their correction.
We live in a strange day. With email, blogs, texting, and social media, rebuking has never been easier. And yet in a culture of hurt feelings and thin skin, rebuking has never been more suspect. Often times in church life, we consider it intrusive to correct someone. Some of us think that it is not our place to judge. I call it "sloppy agape". Some of us value relationships over truth and maintaining peace at all costs. So we supposedly stand for love, but not for truth. I have been at meetings where young or immature believers spoke complete erroneous statements and the leader or mature believers just smiled approvingly and did not even attempt to gently correct. I have seen someone post something on FB that was in error theologically or mean spirited or wrong and proceed to see 25 people say how good that comment was without one word of correction. I have seen churches or groups where it is known about a behavior, attitude, or speech of someone that is sinful and everyone buries their head in sand and refuses to deal with it (That is, if they themselves even know that it it is sinful, wrong, or harmful to the person and the body of Christ.)
But I have also seen people who are truth oriented and not love and relationship oriented. They can be very invasive, intrusive, harsh, critical, hurtful, mean spirited, and ineffective when it comes to rebuking others. Some give rebukes where no rebuke is needed. Others like to tell people what to do or have some control or power over others. Some truly are judgmental and critical when it comes to relating to others.
So which is it? Should we rebuke or should we not rebuke? Do Christians rebuke too much or too little? Well, of course, that depends. Some Christians rebuke too much, while others rebuke to little. So let's look at the art of rebuking. I will break this down into four headings: Why we rebuke. When to rebuke. How to rebuke. How to receive rebuke. The first two, I will discuss this week, and we will conclude with the remaining two next week. I hope you will read both blogs because all four sections go together.
Why Should We Rebuke?
1. It is the biblical thing to do.
When Peter came to Antioch, Paul opposed him to his face because he stood condemned (Galatians 2:11). Bravo to Paul for dishing it out, and kudos to Peter for taking it to heart. “Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence, reprove a man of understanding, and he will gain knowledge” (Proverbs 19:25).
We are supposed to correct one another (see Matthew 18). It’s strange that we get correction in school, correction from parents, correction from employers. Yet in the rest of life, in the stuff that matters most, people will rarely dare to tell us hard things. Every bit of Scripture is useful for reproof (2 Timothy 3:16). If we only use the Bible to tell people things they want to hear we’re wielding a single edged sword.
There is a beautiful instance we find in Acts 18:25-28 where there was "...a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus."
Notice that Apollos was gifted but a novice in terms of doctrine. Priscilla and Aquilla heard him preach and took him aside privately to rebuke or correct him in the "way of God". What was the outcome? Apollos helped the believers, refuted the Jews, and showed in the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. Now that is what I call a beautiful, successful, textbook rebuke.
2. It is a loving thing to do.
“Those whom I love,” Jesus said, “I reprove and discipline” (Revelation 3:19). He didn’t say, “I love you so much, but I still have to rebuke you.” He said, “Because I love you, I will rebuke you.” The reason we don’t rebuke more often is not because we are so full of love, it is because we do not truly love. We like people to think well of us. We like our relationships to be easy. As one writer said: “the opposite of love is not correction, but indifference.”
And yet, if you rebuke or discipline, people will say you are not loving. Just count on it. We live in an age that is emotionally fragile, easily hurt, and quickly offended. People don’t make arguments, they emote feelings. They don’t respond to logic, they claim that you use your logic in a mean way. So don’t be surprised when people equate rebuking with reviling. If you dare to correct a friend, he may think you hateful, judgmental, and meddlesome. But Jesus said, “those whom I love, I reprove.”
3. Rebuke protects you from hurting others and from hurting yourself.
It also protects the flock from false teachers and evil doers. One of the chief responsibilities of the elder or pastor is that he be able to rebuke (2 Timothy 4:2; Titus 1:9, 14; 2:15). A leader who never rebukes sin and never corrects false teaching is not protecting his flock. And he who refuses to protect refuses to love.
In Ezekiel 3:16-21, the leaders were likened to watchmen on the city walls. That’s what the elders are to be (Acts 20:26-31). If we see enemy doctrines or enemy sin in our midst, we must warn the city, lest we have blood on our hands. Correction is our calling.
4. Rebuking restores.
The goal of a rebuke, like any kind of discipline, is always restoration. It’s not punishment it is correction. A loving rebuke is not supposed to be like a gunshot, but like a flu shot. It may hurt, but the goal is to help you get healthy. “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20).
When Should We Rebuke Someone
1.We should rebuke someone the more hurtful the action or error.
If your friend keeps talking about Calvinism and Arminianism and thinks the last book of the Bible is Revelations, a corrective word at the right moment might be in order but a full-fledged rebuke is not. On the other hand, when someone’s sin is ruining a marriage, killing a church, grinding down your small group, or destroying their own soul, you had better get on the rebuking train. And fast. I have seen the results in my own life and ministry when I failed to deal with these matters. It never is pretty.
2. We should rebuke someone the more potential there is for the issue to escalate into a bigger problem.
For example, say you are over a friend’s house and you hear her snap rather inappropriately at her children. You could probably overlook the incident. But if your friend snapped at three other families’ children in the hallway at church, you better talk to her. There’s a real possibility this mole hill will becomes a mountain unless she does something to address her mistake.
3. You should rebuke a person the more the person is blind to it.
Christians who make mistakes and feel terrible about it don’t need a rebuke. They need the Savior. But it’s a different story when your brother or sister does not see the problem. Suppose you begin to notice that one of the couples in your small group never seems to get along. You sense coldness and hostility in their marriage. But they’ve been open with the group that they are seeing a biblical counselor for help. Probably no need to rebuke what they already see. But if they were blind to their problems, someone needs the courage to confront.
4. You should rebuke a person the more habitual the problem is.
An errant swear word is bad, but depending on the situation may not require your rebuke. But where there’s a habit of letting the filth fly, reproof is in order. When Christians fall into sin they need a hand up. When they fall into the same sin in the same place day after day, they need a kick in the pants first.
5. You should rebuke a person because if you don't, the more you will be held account for your silence.
We don’t all have to rebuke the President when we think he makes a mistake. We can in a free country, but unless we are his advisers, friends, or family it isn’t incumbent upon us to do so.
Likewise, we don’t have to rebuke every wayward Christian author, pastor, or church (that would be daunting). No one is responsible for speaking into everyone’s life on every issue (praise God for that). But for your children, your spouse, your close friends, your accountability partner, your flock, that church member who invited correction in his life–for these people our silence in the face of sin will not be golden.
6. You should rebuke a person the more the name of Christ is dishonored.
We must distinguish between honest struggles that are part of the normal upward trajectory of the Christian and flagrant sins that embarrass the cause of Christ. Yes, every sin dishonors Christ. But some are more egregious, more public, more high-handed. These are especially harmful to our Christian witness and deserve a sterner rebuke.
7. You should rebuke a person the more the gospel is threatened.
Young zealous Christians sometimes don’t get this one. Every theological error looks and smells exactly the same to them. But they are not all the same. Some matters are of first importance, which means others must be secondary.
To be continued...
Pastor Bill
We live in a strange day. With email, blogs, texting, and social media, rebuking has never been easier. And yet in a culture of hurt feelings and thin skin, rebuking has never been more suspect. Often times in church life, we consider it intrusive to correct someone. Some of us think that it is not our place to judge. I call it "sloppy agape". Some of us value relationships over truth and maintaining peace at all costs. So we supposedly stand for love, but not for truth. I have been at meetings where young or immature believers spoke complete erroneous statements and the leader or mature believers just smiled approvingly and did not even attempt to gently correct. I have seen someone post something on FB that was in error theologically or mean spirited or wrong and proceed to see 25 people say how good that comment was without one word of correction. I have seen churches or groups where it is known about a behavior, attitude, or speech of someone that is sinful and everyone buries their head in sand and refuses to deal with it (That is, if they themselves even know that it it is sinful, wrong, or harmful to the person and the body of Christ.)
But I have also seen people who are truth oriented and not love and relationship oriented. They can be very invasive, intrusive, harsh, critical, hurtful, mean spirited, and ineffective when it comes to rebuking others. Some give rebukes where no rebuke is needed. Others like to tell people what to do or have some control or power over others. Some truly are judgmental and critical when it comes to relating to others.
So which is it? Should we rebuke or should we not rebuke? Do Christians rebuke too much or too little? Well, of course, that depends. Some Christians rebuke too much, while others rebuke to little. So let's look at the art of rebuking. I will break this down into four headings: Why we rebuke. When to rebuke. How to rebuke. How to receive rebuke. The first two, I will discuss this week, and we will conclude with the remaining two next week. I hope you will read both blogs because all four sections go together.
Why Should We Rebuke?
1. It is the biblical thing to do.
When Peter came to Antioch, Paul opposed him to his face because he stood condemned (Galatians 2:11). Bravo to Paul for dishing it out, and kudos to Peter for taking it to heart. “Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence, reprove a man of understanding, and he will gain knowledge” (Proverbs 19:25).
We are supposed to correct one another (see Matthew 18). It’s strange that we get correction in school, correction from parents, correction from employers. Yet in the rest of life, in the stuff that matters most, people will rarely dare to tell us hard things. Every bit of Scripture is useful for reproof (2 Timothy 3:16). If we only use the Bible to tell people things they want to hear we’re wielding a single edged sword.
There is a beautiful instance we find in Acts 18:25-28 where there was "...a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus."
Notice that Apollos was gifted but a novice in terms of doctrine. Priscilla and Aquilla heard him preach and took him aside privately to rebuke or correct him in the "way of God". What was the outcome? Apollos helped the believers, refuted the Jews, and showed in the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. Now that is what I call a beautiful, successful, textbook rebuke.
2. It is a loving thing to do.
“Those whom I love,” Jesus said, “I reprove and discipline” (Revelation 3:19). He didn’t say, “I love you so much, but I still have to rebuke you.” He said, “Because I love you, I will rebuke you.” The reason we don’t rebuke more often is not because we are so full of love, it is because we do not truly love. We like people to think well of us. We like our relationships to be easy. As one writer said: “the opposite of love is not correction, but indifference.”
And yet, if you rebuke or discipline, people will say you are not loving. Just count on it. We live in an age that is emotionally fragile, easily hurt, and quickly offended. People don’t make arguments, they emote feelings. They don’t respond to logic, they claim that you use your logic in a mean way. So don’t be surprised when people equate rebuking with reviling. If you dare to correct a friend, he may think you hateful, judgmental, and meddlesome. But Jesus said, “those whom I love, I reprove.”
3. Rebuke protects you from hurting others and from hurting yourself.
It also protects the flock from false teachers and evil doers. One of the chief responsibilities of the elder or pastor is that he be able to rebuke (2 Timothy 4:2; Titus 1:9, 14; 2:15). A leader who never rebukes sin and never corrects false teaching is not protecting his flock. And he who refuses to protect refuses to love.
In Ezekiel 3:16-21, the leaders were likened to watchmen on the city walls. That’s what the elders are to be (Acts 20:26-31). If we see enemy doctrines or enemy sin in our midst, we must warn the city, lest we have blood on our hands. Correction is our calling.
4. Rebuking restores.
The goal of a rebuke, like any kind of discipline, is always restoration. It’s not punishment it is correction. A loving rebuke is not supposed to be like a gunshot, but like a flu shot. It may hurt, but the goal is to help you get healthy. “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20).
When Should We Rebuke Someone
1.We should rebuke someone the more hurtful the action or error.
If your friend keeps talking about Calvinism and Arminianism and thinks the last book of the Bible is Revelations, a corrective word at the right moment might be in order but a full-fledged rebuke is not. On the other hand, when someone’s sin is ruining a marriage, killing a church, grinding down your small group, or destroying their own soul, you had better get on the rebuking train. And fast. I have seen the results in my own life and ministry when I failed to deal with these matters. It never is pretty.
2. We should rebuke someone the more potential there is for the issue to escalate into a bigger problem.
For example, say you are over a friend’s house and you hear her snap rather inappropriately at her children. You could probably overlook the incident. But if your friend snapped at three other families’ children in the hallway at church, you better talk to her. There’s a real possibility this mole hill will becomes a mountain unless she does something to address her mistake.
3. You should rebuke a person the more the person is blind to it.
Christians who make mistakes and feel terrible about it don’t need a rebuke. They need the Savior. But it’s a different story when your brother or sister does not see the problem. Suppose you begin to notice that one of the couples in your small group never seems to get along. You sense coldness and hostility in their marriage. But they’ve been open with the group that they are seeing a biblical counselor for help. Probably no need to rebuke what they already see. But if they were blind to their problems, someone needs the courage to confront.
4. You should rebuke a person the more habitual the problem is.
An errant swear word is bad, but depending on the situation may not require your rebuke. But where there’s a habit of letting the filth fly, reproof is in order. When Christians fall into sin they need a hand up. When they fall into the same sin in the same place day after day, they need a kick in the pants first.
5. You should rebuke a person because if you don't, the more you will be held account for your silence.
We don’t all have to rebuke the President when we think he makes a mistake. We can in a free country, but unless we are his advisers, friends, or family it isn’t incumbent upon us to do so.
Likewise, we don’t have to rebuke every wayward Christian author, pastor, or church (that would be daunting). No one is responsible for speaking into everyone’s life on every issue (praise God for that). But for your children, your spouse, your close friends, your accountability partner, your flock, that church member who invited correction in his life–for these people our silence in the face of sin will not be golden.
6. You should rebuke a person the more the name of Christ is dishonored.
We must distinguish between honest struggles that are part of the normal upward trajectory of the Christian and flagrant sins that embarrass the cause of Christ. Yes, every sin dishonors Christ. But some are more egregious, more public, more high-handed. These are especially harmful to our Christian witness and deserve a sterner rebuke.
7. You should rebuke a person the more the gospel is threatened.
Young zealous Christians sometimes don’t get this one. Every theological error looks and smells exactly the same to them. But they are not all the same. Some matters are of first importance, which means others must be secondary.
To be continued...
Pastor Bill
Monday, August 1, 2011
FROM THE KINGDOM OF NOISE TO THE KINGDOM OF QUIET
"When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour” (Revelation 8:1)
“The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him” (Habakkuk 2:20)
“Be silent before the Sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near” (Zephaniah 1:7)
“Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling” (Zechariah 2:13)
Heaven is place where everything that is not music is silence and Hell is the kingdom of noise.
If you read the book of Revelation, you will notice that the author of Revelation, the apostle John, takes us back and forth between scenes of heaven and scenes of earth; of moments in past time, moments of future time, and scenes of eternity.What a fascinating book! Throughout the first seven chapters of Revelation, there are several heavenly scenes, and in each we see scenes of great worship, celebration, and jubilation. But, Revelation is full of surprises, and at the beginning of chapter 8 is one of the greatest. Instead of the expected escalation in the noise level, there is complete silence in heaven. This silence is the climax to the worship going on in heaven around the throne. Having sung their praises, these creatures, both heavenly and earthly, shut up. In silence they worship their Creator and their Redeemer. Silence is the climax of their worship, not an interruption of it. Silence enhances their worship, not diminishes it.
The writer George MacDonald wrote of heaven,
Heaven is a place where everything that is not music is silence.
We live in a noisy world and amidst noise at all times; the clamor of talk radio, the barrage of texting, the blaring of music,the ring of cell phones, the drone of cars, the voices of Madison Avenue. the clang of the cash register, the endless thoughts that we carry with us at all times.
In The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis makes an interesting observation about noise in a fictional letter between a senior devil and a new tempter:
“Music and silence – how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since Our Father entered Hell … no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise – Noise, that grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile – Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anywhere like it.”
Noise – as described above, is more than just a loud cacophony of discordant sounds. It is all thoughts and distractions which make it impossible for us to hear the sweeter and more important melodies of life that constantly surround us. This noise is found in many forms and, interestingly enough, assumes the quality of being noise not so much by the sound it makes as much as by the setting it is found in. What might be beautiful and uplifting in one setting becomes noise in another.
We live noisy lives. I don’t mean just the audible noise to which we are exposed. We are constantly bombarded with more and more items clamoring for our attention. One of the more insidious aspects of noise is that it becomes addicting.We can get into our cars and immediately turn on the radio. We can hear the cell phone ring and have to answer. I cannot tell you how many times I have been with someone who allows their cell phone or texting to interrupt our conversation as if it is something really important. We can come home from work and turn on the television or put on music. We are all vulnerable to allow noise to be a part of our surroundings. “If we try to be quiet, we are assaulted by what C.S. Lewis called ‘the Kingdom of Noise.’ Everywhere we go we hear background noise. If the noise isn’t provided for us, we can bring our own via our iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Even our church services can have that same restless energy. There is little space to be still before God. We want our money’s worth, so something should always be happening. For many of us, a moment of silence in church seems awkward and uncomfortable.
All of this seems innocent enough, but what is it costing me? how often are thrown back into the Kingdom of Noise and lose our precious contact with the Lord of Silence. When noise becomes my natural environment, I struggle to hear the whisperings of the spirit. If I favor noise to human interaction, I am missing out on the conversations and experiences that will bind me closer to those who matter to me. And, the more immersed I am in noise, the more my inner core becomes attuned to the frequencies of the world. When I stop to think about all this I am convinced that noise is one of the many subtle tools that Satan uses to create distance between us and our Heavenly Father.
All of us are like the soundboard of a piano, reverberating and amplifying the sounds that we are associated with. By putting ourselves in close proximity to our Heavenly Father in our thoughts, actions, and surroundings, we can tune ourselves to the appropriate heavenly pitch we are meant to echo and reflect. Fortunately for us, these divine influences surround us every bit as much as the noise does. The difference is that we must be properly tuned to hear and experience them. Once we learn to identify these uplifting influences they can become so powerful that they eliminate the distractions of worldly noise.
To be properly tuned we need to recognize the role of noise in our everyday life and eliminate its influence as much as possible. This doesn’t mean that we can never listen to our favorite music or watch movies again (unless they drive the Spirit away by their very nature). It means recognizing when these influences become noise and then being prudent with our time and resources. The natural result of this exercise will be to fill our time with worthwhile activities that are more in line with what our Heavenly Father wants for us, and this is the second half of the solution. These worthwhile activities will expose us to heaven’s sounds and make them easier to hear and recognize.
If we eliminate noise we will begin to recognize that our Heavenly Father is not an absent parent. He is always there for us, as long as we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand. We will then join the ranks of those who realize as Elizabeth Barret Browning wrote that,
“Earth is crammed with heaven and every bush is aflame with the light of God, but only those with eyes to see take off their shoes.”
May we embrace silence and learn to quiet all the inner and outer voices in order to hear God's voice. God revealed Himself to Elijah in "a still and small voice" (Literally a "sheer whisper") (1 Kings 19:12). I have found silence and quiet to be full of God's presence. Try this week turning off the cell phone for a moment, turn down the answer machine, turn off the radio and television, stop multi-tasking, go away from superficial, empty conversation, and be still not just to be still, but to know that He is God. Let us learn to worship our Lord sitting silent--in patient waiting for His Voice to comfort us, to lead us, to teach us, to refresh us. Let us abolish the Kingdom of Noise with our soothing melodies of solitude, with our quiet chorus of silence.
In stillness and simplicity
In the silence of the heart I see
The mystery of eternity
Who lives in side of me
In stillness and simplicity
I hear the Spirit's silent plea
That You, oh Lord, are close to me
In stillness and simplicity
You're the Word
Who must be heard
By those who listen quietly
Is the reason we're not still
To hear You speak because
We don't believe
You will
In stillness and simplicity
I lose myself in finding Thee
Oh Lord,
You mean so much to me
In stillness and simplicity
So, seek the One who dwells in you
The kingdom that within is true
That innermost reality
In stillness and simplicity
Michael Card
Breaking free from the Kingdom of noise,
Pastor Bill
“The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him” (Habakkuk 2:20)
“Be silent before the Sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near” (Zephaniah 1:7)
“Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling” (Zechariah 2:13)
Heaven is place where everything that is not music is silence and Hell is the kingdom of noise.
If you read the book of Revelation, you will notice that the author of Revelation, the apostle John, takes us back and forth between scenes of heaven and scenes of earth; of moments in past time, moments of future time, and scenes of eternity.What a fascinating book! Throughout the first seven chapters of Revelation, there are several heavenly scenes, and in each we see scenes of great worship, celebration, and jubilation. But, Revelation is full of surprises, and at the beginning of chapter 8 is one of the greatest. Instead of the expected escalation in the noise level, there is complete silence in heaven. This silence is the climax to the worship going on in heaven around the throne. Having sung their praises, these creatures, both heavenly and earthly, shut up. In silence they worship their Creator and their Redeemer. Silence is the climax of their worship, not an interruption of it. Silence enhances their worship, not diminishes it.
The writer George MacDonald wrote of heaven,
Heaven is a place where everything that is not music is silence.
We live in a noisy world and amidst noise at all times; the clamor of talk radio, the barrage of texting, the blaring of music,the ring of cell phones, the drone of cars, the voices of Madison Avenue. the clang of the cash register, the endless thoughts that we carry with us at all times.
In The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis makes an interesting observation about noise in a fictional letter between a senior devil and a new tempter:
“Music and silence – how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since Our Father entered Hell … no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise – Noise, that grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile – Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anywhere like it.”
Noise – as described above, is more than just a loud cacophony of discordant sounds. It is all thoughts and distractions which make it impossible for us to hear the sweeter and more important melodies of life that constantly surround us. This noise is found in many forms and, interestingly enough, assumes the quality of being noise not so much by the sound it makes as much as by the setting it is found in. What might be beautiful and uplifting in one setting becomes noise in another.
We live noisy lives. I don’t mean just the audible noise to which we are exposed. We are constantly bombarded with more and more items clamoring for our attention. One of the more insidious aspects of noise is that it becomes addicting.We can get into our cars and immediately turn on the radio. We can hear the cell phone ring and have to answer. I cannot tell you how many times I have been with someone who allows their cell phone or texting to interrupt our conversation as if it is something really important. We can come home from work and turn on the television or put on music. We are all vulnerable to allow noise to be a part of our surroundings. “If we try to be quiet, we are assaulted by what C.S. Lewis called ‘the Kingdom of Noise.’ Everywhere we go we hear background noise. If the noise isn’t provided for us, we can bring our own via our iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Even our church services can have that same restless energy. There is little space to be still before God. We want our money’s worth, so something should always be happening. For many of us, a moment of silence in church seems awkward and uncomfortable.
All of this seems innocent enough, but what is it costing me? how often are thrown back into the Kingdom of Noise and lose our precious contact with the Lord of Silence. When noise becomes my natural environment, I struggle to hear the whisperings of the spirit. If I favor noise to human interaction, I am missing out on the conversations and experiences that will bind me closer to those who matter to me. And, the more immersed I am in noise, the more my inner core becomes attuned to the frequencies of the world. When I stop to think about all this I am convinced that noise is one of the many subtle tools that Satan uses to create distance between us and our Heavenly Father.
All of us are like the soundboard of a piano, reverberating and amplifying the sounds that we are associated with. By putting ourselves in close proximity to our Heavenly Father in our thoughts, actions, and surroundings, we can tune ourselves to the appropriate heavenly pitch we are meant to echo and reflect. Fortunately for us, these divine influences surround us every bit as much as the noise does. The difference is that we must be properly tuned to hear and experience them. Once we learn to identify these uplifting influences they can become so powerful that they eliminate the distractions of worldly noise.
To be properly tuned we need to recognize the role of noise in our everyday life and eliminate its influence as much as possible. This doesn’t mean that we can never listen to our favorite music or watch movies again (unless they drive the Spirit away by their very nature). It means recognizing when these influences become noise and then being prudent with our time and resources. The natural result of this exercise will be to fill our time with worthwhile activities that are more in line with what our Heavenly Father wants for us, and this is the second half of the solution. These worthwhile activities will expose us to heaven’s sounds and make them easier to hear and recognize.
If we eliminate noise we will begin to recognize that our Heavenly Father is not an absent parent. He is always there for us, as long as we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand. We will then join the ranks of those who realize as Elizabeth Barret Browning wrote that,
“Earth is crammed with heaven and every bush is aflame with the light of God, but only those with eyes to see take off their shoes.”
May we embrace silence and learn to quiet all the inner and outer voices in order to hear God's voice. God revealed Himself to Elijah in "a still and small voice" (Literally a "sheer whisper") (1 Kings 19:12). I have found silence and quiet to be full of God's presence. Try this week turning off the cell phone for a moment, turn down the answer machine, turn off the radio and television, stop multi-tasking, go away from superficial, empty conversation, and be still not just to be still, but to know that He is God. Let us learn to worship our Lord sitting silent--in patient waiting for His Voice to comfort us, to lead us, to teach us, to refresh us. Let us abolish the Kingdom of Noise with our soothing melodies of solitude, with our quiet chorus of silence.
In stillness and simplicity
In the silence of the heart I see
The mystery of eternity
Who lives in side of me
In stillness and simplicity
I hear the Spirit's silent plea
That You, oh Lord, are close to me
In stillness and simplicity
You're the Word
Who must be heard
By those who listen quietly
Is the reason we're not still
To hear You speak because
We don't believe
You will
In stillness and simplicity
I lose myself in finding Thee
Oh Lord,
You mean so much to me
In stillness and simplicity
So, seek the One who dwells in you
The kingdom that within is true
That innermost reality
In stillness and simplicity
Michael Card
Breaking free from the Kingdom of noise,
Pastor Bill
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