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