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(This talk was first given by Dusty at his local Fellowship in
England
. The two Bible readings for that meeting
were Proverbs 15:3-14 and 3 John 1:1-8.)
INTRODUCTION
Good morning everyone. For the benefit of those here today
who don’t yet know me, I’m
Dusty Peterson
. I’m a software engineer by trade but I’ve spent the last six years
studying God’s Word full-time and writing various Christian books and
articles. (I’ve been a believer for 23 years– almost to the day as a matter
of fact.)
I don’t do a lot of speaking,
so I hope you’ll be patient with me. As we heard earlier in the month, the
ability to speak well in public is not related to soundness. A lot of very
talented speakers today are false
brothers, whereas the Apostle Paul admitted to the Corinthians that he was not a
great speaker. I must say that, in my time, I’ve heard a lot of absolute
rubbish preached, but it was often preached very capably. (After all, Hitler
himself was able to beguile an entire nation due to his speaking ability.) What
I’m trying to say is, please don’t determine the quality of my material by the quality of my presentation!
May I also say that I’m
delighted to be here. I mean that in both senses: Firstly, I’m happy to be
here behind this lectern this morning (although I’m acutely aware that it is a
very heavy responsibility indeed to bring teaching to the Body of Christ). I’m
extremely grateful to the eldership of this church for trusting me and giving me
this opportunity to bring what I believe the Lord wants me to say today…
But I’m also very happy to be
here in the sense of being attached to
this Fellowship, and to have met so many good people so quickly.
There are just a couple of
‘admin’ points for us before I get into the topic of my talk. First of all,
please test everything I say. (As we also
heard a few weeks ago, it’s important not to judge by the outward appearance,
but it is important to judge my words.
Please check what I say against holy scripture.) Secondly, I will happily take
some questions at the end, so, if any queries occur to you as we go along, it
would be great if they could be held on to until then. I hope that’s all
right.
PART
1: The NEED for correction
Okay. When the Lord Jesus Christ was here on Earth with us,
He was described as being “full of
grace and truth” (John
1:14
). Since His followers are called to be like Him (Eph. 4:12-20 etc), we all
need to endeavour to be similarly full of grace and
truth – and this is the title of my talk today. Earlier, I quoted the
Apostle John saying “I have no
greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth”. This is a really remarkable statement. It wasn’t unity
he put first, or even faithfulness. It was truth. (Of course, the truth – i.e.
the Bible – both commands us to be faithful and
to seek unity, but it is truth which
needs to be the basis of each. If anyone disagrees with that statement, I would
urge them to read Part 4 of the first book I co-authored. [Please see endnote [1] for details.])
The fact is that, no matter what
a believer wants for his local church,
or indeed what he wants from his local
church, the most basic requirement for seeing that desire come to fruition –
as long as it is a biblical desire of course – is truth. So, whether a
person wants their Fellowship to be…
Ý
A loving sanctuary for the People of God, or
Ý
A seriously effective house of prayer, or
Ý
A place where God regularly speaks and moves, or
Ý
A local example of a pure, betrothed, ‘bride’
of Christ, or
Ý
A church capable of discipling folks to the kind of level that the Lord Jesus
did, or
Ý
A Fellowship which sees the Lord adding to its number daily “such as should be
saved”, or simply,
Ý
A fully-functioning part of the Body of Christ...
...Whatever our individual
dreams and desires for our local church, the key in every single case is for us
congregants to increasingly know – and obviously obey – the truth. (Whatever
we want for our own lives – again,
provided that thing is biblical – is also achieved through knowing, and
obeying, the truth.) Clearly it is rather hard for a person to obey
the truth if they don’t first have a good grasp
of the truth. The more we know the truth, the more we can obey it.
The essential point I’m
leading up to is that every Christian needs instruction and correction. We all
need our brothers and sisters in the Lord to be watching out for us and to be
prepared to point out truths that we are missing or ignoring. (Please note that
I am talking here of correction regarding both doctrine and practice – i.e. our beliefs and
our behaviour.)
My talk today is about this
subject of correction, and my thoughts have been organized into two parts. To
begin with I plan to discuss the ways in which a Christian should try to receive
correction, and then I want to look at the ways in which a Christian should try
to bring correction to another. (My suggestions come from 23 years of
experience of making a lot of mistakes myself and watching others make them as
well. I therefore beg you to consider what I have to say, rather than
unnecessarily repeating the same errors that I and others have made – and
which any right-thinking believer would regret.)
PART
2: RECEIVING correction
The flesh hates correction. It therefore makes sense for me
to approach this section of my talk by putting myself in the hot-seat and by telling you how I will endeavour to respond when I receive correction from anyone in
this Fellowship. (However, I obviously believe the following principles should
be applied by all believers.)
BE THANKFUL
The first point to make is that,
if someone gives me correction, I will always seek to be thankful – i.e. to
show gratitude. Why ought I to be thankful when someone comes up and criticizes
me? There are three reasons I want to suggest here:
(1) Firstly, I
ought to be grateful because correction will enable me to be a better-equipped
servant of the Lord. If I want to be a true, and growing, disciple then I will
need correction (and even admonition) at times.
(2) Secondly, I
ought to be grateful because the flesh and the devil are always seeking to
deceive us and take us away from the truth. If I give in to my flesh, or am
fooled by the enemy, I may well need others to help show me my actual situation.
(Indeed, I have come to believe that we Christians are designed
to need our brothers and sisters to watch out for us – just as different parts
of a human body are needed to protect and restore other parts so that they can
do their job properly. God surely encourages us, in Proverbs, to have a
“multitude of counsellors” for this very reason (Prov.
11:14
;
15:22
; 24:6). We all have blindspots or errors in some areas, and we all have
experience and wisdom in others. We need to be prepared to share with, and
accept from, each other in this matter so that we can all be spiritually
healthy.)
(3) Thirdly, I
ought to be grateful for correction because God says that we must love
the truth – and must therefore seek it – and that His People “are destroyed
for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). If I have an error in my theology then it
will inevitably lead me to have a distorted view of God – which can only serve
to distance me from Him. In Psalm 119 we are told to avoid “every
false way”. In fact, it says nothing of the sort. The Psalm in question says
we are to “HATE” every false way (see verses 104 & 128). It follows that
I should love being helped to
recognize false ways in my life.
So, I need to be grateful to the
person bringing the correction. I should also be grateful to God,
for He says that we are to be thankful in ALL circumstances, even those which
hurt (e.g. see Eph.
5:20
).
BE OPEN
Next, whenever someone attempts
to correct me, I will endeavour to be open
to that correction…
In this regard, let’s go back to Proverbs 15, which was
the first reading this morning. We’ve already seen, in verse 10, that “he
that hateth reproof shall die”
(not, ‘he that hateth reproof shall not store up much treasure in heaven’,
or ‘he that hateth reproof shall lack friends’, but “he that hateth
reproof shall die”). Very many of
the other verses in that chapter of the Bible are directly relevant to this
talk, but I’ll leave you to check the rest of them at your leisure. For now, I
just want to mention one other – i.e. verse 32. It reads: “He that refuseth
instruction despiseth his own soul:
but he that heareth reproof getteth
understanding”.
It shouldn’t matter who the
person bringing the correction is, I still need to be open to it. It shouldn’t
matter to me if the person trying to correct me is well-dressed or not, eloquent
or not, even sound or not. Regardless
of what the person is like, if they try to bring me correction, I need to be
open to it. Even if they are horrible in the way they present it, what matters
most is whether the point they are making is legitimate or not. (An American
friend of mine recently had someone ‘nuke’ him, as he likes to term it, for
sending the person a criticism of a new fad with which they were getting
involved. But this person focused entirely on the style of my friend's letter rather than facing up to the question of
whether his points were right or not – yet it is the latter which is the most
important issue.)
CHECK IT CAREFULLY
Next, if someone brings me
correction, I will always endeavour to check it out carefully and to take it
very seriously – even if I don’t initially believe the other person is right
about the particular point they have raised.
Now, I may be able to think of
one or more scriptures which appear to negate the criticism being offered me,
but, in order to encourage us to read the whole Bible, God has made a lot of
individual verses rather ambiguous. [For
proof of this, please see my talks entitled ‘Beware False Balances’ –
freely downloadable from the Bayith website (bayith.org).] Therefore, if I
disagree with some correction because I think I know of a verse which gainsays
that correction, I will take care to triple-check that my understanding of the
verse, in context, does indeed line up with the rest of Scripture before
responding with it.
Even if I am certain that the correction on offer is completely wrong, I should still
take it away and mull it over and check it against holy writ. It may well also
be advisable for me to ask the other person for clarification – and/or for all
the supporting Bible verses they can bring to bear. In truth, even if the
correction is totally unfounded, it may still
give me useful tips as to how I can pre-empt similar criticisms in the future.
(What I mean here is that I may unintentionally have done something which,
although entirely reasonable, did allow folks to misunderstand my actions.
Perhaps I inadvertently wrote an ambiguous statement in a particular article –
which enabled people to misconstrue my agenda. Even if my motives were entirely
pure and what I wrote was fair, some tightening of my work can avoid anyone else
from wanting to make the same criticism of me.)
BE AMIABLE
The fourth and final thing I
will try to do whenever someone brings me correction is to be amiable. In a moment we will look at some advisable ways to bring
correction, but the ‘bottom line’ is that, even if the person correcting me
fails in all these ways, I still need
to respond amiably and graciously. Why is this? Well, mainly because the Bible
tells me to. Colossians says: “Let your speech be alway with grace”. But there is another important reason for
giving this response. Let me explain by way of an example:
You sometimes see people being
ill-mannered to total strangers for no reason at all. Maybe they arrogantly push
into a queue ahead of someone else, or perhaps they laugh loudly and viciously
at a person nearby who has just had a misfortune. If you think about it, this
sort of behaviour is ridiculous, because that ill-mannered person may come to
need that same stranger’s help. Suppose the obnoxious person suddenly has an
accident. The stranger who has been abused may well be seriously discouraged
from aiding someone who has just been horrible to them without cause.
This sort of thing happens quite
a lot in the workplace. A person is
unjustifiably sharp, or otherwise unpleasant, to someone in another department,
apparently never thinking that they
will probably need to ask that same person for a work-related favour one day.
Won’t the abused person be significantly less motivated to help the individual
who was ill-natured toward them?…
In the matter of bringing
correction, the same is basically true of Christians. If I am objectionable in
my response to someone who was simply trying to bless me with correction, and
if, later on, they are the only person to recognize some other problem in my
life, I have shot myself in the foot – or possibly even dug my own grave –
because my graceless reaction in the past will discourage the other person from
correcting me again.
And what if the person I have
alienated goes on to inform other members of the church that I am difficult or
disagreeable when challenged? Will that news encourage those other folks to
bring me correction when I need it? I don’t think so. (I’m not suggesting
that true Christians will cease to love
a brother who is unpleasant when being corrected, but I am saying that it could easily tip the balance regarding whether the
offended party is willing to put themselves in harm’s way again by bringing
correction in the future. It might even distance them so much that they
physically cannot spot their brother’s subsequent errors.)
If we feel that someone we know
has indeed become reticent to challenge us, it is wise to be pro-active and to
reassure them that they need not be so. For instance, we can humbly ask them if
they have any concerns over any area of our walk. This is just one simple way in
which we can help show them that we are teachable after all.
PART
3: BRINGING correction
Okay. So much for receiving
correction. What if the shoe is on the other foot and we need to bring
correction? What is the most effective way to do that? (Notice I have
deliberately used the word ‘effective’ here. We must keep the goal
in view – the goal being to rescue the person from their error, or at least to
leave them without excuse. The goal must never be to get the matter off our
chest, or to make ourselves look clever, or anything like that. We need to make
sure that our motivation is right. We must be careful not to correct others out
of ‘religiosity’ or to ‘score points’. Just as the flesh hates to receive correction, so the flesh loves to give correction,
so we have to make very certain that any correction we bring is given for godly
reasons.)
PREPARATION
Before correcting another
believer, we must do some preparation.
For a start, we must check
our facts. And by that I not only mean we must check to ensure that the
correction we plan to bring is biblical (it surely goes without saying that it
is essential we get this aspect right), but we must also check that the
perceived problem does indeed exist in the other person. It is very
easy to misunderstand a person’s actions, or to mishear things people say. We
can often get wires crossed – especially if we have heard of the matter
secondhand. And jumping to firm conclusions is extremely foolish and dangerous.
We must be sure we know the other person’s side of the story before launching
into correction. I cannot emphasize this point strongly enough.
Another thing that I have come
to realize is absolutely crucial, whenever bringing correction, is to pray
before doing so. Even if it is a small, simple matter at issue, we must be
careful not to act in our own strength. For all we know, the other person may be
going through a terrible time at that moment, e.g. in their work life or family
life, and even one wrong word can do a terrible amount of damage in such
circumstances…
I have also come to see that the
enemy is very good at creating situations where one person is minded to bring
correction to another at exactly the wrong
time (and in exactly the wrong way – i.e. in a way which presses all the wrong
buttons). The correction may well be legitimate, but if it is not handled in
God’s timing or in His way then it can bring serious harm to the Body of
Christ.
Another reason we need to pray
– and need to make sure we bring our correction in the way God wants for that
specific situation – is that most people today seem, to a lesser or greater
degree, to have a ‘spiritual blindness’. If a person has been taught an
error in the past which has pleased their flesh and is something to which they
have held for a long time – despite them being exposed to arguments which deny
that view – they will almost certainly have developed a degree of spiritual
blindness which will make it far tougher to correct them…
Their understanding will be
clouded, and they may well get angry and unpleasant when their view is
challenged. Only God knows how to deal with such a blindness, so we must be
sensitive to His leading because we may only get one opportunity to bring our concern. (In other words, the other
person may become too hardened against us and our suggestion if we get our first
approach wrong.) I have met some absolutely lovely Christians in the past who,
when gently challenged on certain errors, suddenly and dramatically
changed for the worse toward the person correcting them – because of a
spiritual blindness in that area.
Another important principle when
preparing to bring correction is to avoid being hasty. Unless we’re unlikely
to be able to contact the other person in the future, there is rarely any need
to bring correction on the first day we discern the problem. It is frequently
very helpful to hold back and instead to start building (or improving) a
relationship with them before confronting them with the criticism.
(Sometimes it will be the case
that God does not want the issue raised for quite a long time – especially
where the error in question is only a symptom of a deeper problem which needs
identifying and addressing first. Besides, a delay will also give us the chance
to learn more about the person – and thus pick up some valuable clues as to
how best to approach them. A delay will probably also make it easier for the
other party to receive our comments, because they will be impressed that we
initially held back rather than rushing in straightaway.)
Having said all this, if the
other person is known to be spreading their error – e.g. by publicly teaching
a heresy – then we may not have the luxury of biding our time.
The closing point I want to make
here is that, if we are thinking of bringing a relatively advanced piece of instruction or correction, we do need to consider
the doctrinal maturity of the recipient, else we may find ourselves trying to
cast our pearls of wisdom before a metaphorical swine – which is not only a pointless
activity but, according to Scripture, a dangerous one as well (Matt. 7:6).
DELIVERY
If, after
completing our preparation, we decide that it is right to go ahead and deliver
the correction, what are the keys to doing that successfully? One point I really
want to stress here is the need to be amiable, or graceful. (Unless one is dealing with children, I
believe it is only for mature elders who are full of the Holy Spirit and who are
known to be upstanding men of God to ever ‘rebuke sharply’ in a church
context. Even such strong admonition should still be given in a gracious way.
Besides, all types of rebuke should be
used very sparingly, and should rarely be the first resort. And anyone giving a
rebuke must be absolutely certain of their ground, for they will look supremely
foolish - and will grievously exasperate the person they rebuked - if the
correction later proves to be wrong.)
If we lack grace
during such a delicate activity as correcting someone’s life then we are
potentially going to do damage both to the other person and to our reputation.
For example, a single harsh comment could destroy
a new believer’s faith – or could put a sincere seeker off Christianity for
good. (Please see James 3:5-8 for more details on the terrible dangers of a
poorly-controlled tongue.) No man or woman of God could easily cope with having
that on their conscience. How then do we correct people in an amiable or
graceful way?
It is invariably
good to start by finding a few encouraging things to say about the other person.
The Lord Himself did this to each of the churches in Revelation (as long as
there existed any such thing to say
about them!). This approach does a great deal to prove that our desire is not to
‘knock’ the other person. We need to make sure that they know we’ve got
their best interests at heart. We also need to speak in a patient, gentle,
humble, tenderhearted way (see Col. 1:10-11, 1 Thess.
5:14
, 2 Tim.
2:24
, Gal.
5:22
, 1 Thess. 2:7, 1 Pet. 5:5, Eph.
4:32
etc etc). The world out there hates the true Church, and many of us believers
have a hard enough time contending with that. Let’s make sure we don’t let
this same attitude inside, when what
the Body of Christ actually needs to be is a sanctuary, restoring
us after the batterings from the world.
A further point
worth quickly making is that, if the issue we are raising is one with which we
ourselves have struggled in the past, then we should definitely consider letting
the other person know this (unless the information is sensitive and the other
person lacks the maturity to handle it aright). This will again help to
demonstrate that we are not trying to correct the other party just for the sake
of it, and will also tell them that we probably know what we are talking about
– and therefore that we would probably also be an ideal person to advise them
on how to deal with the problem. (I should make clear at this juncture that I am
saying all these things for my
instruction too.)
Another
important way for us to show grace is to think the best of the person. For
instance, when we choose our words, we need to bear in mind the fact that there
may well be mitigating circumstances. The British Army is strong here. Before
chastising one of their men, officers are taught always to give the soldier a
decent opportunity to explain his actions, in case it turns out that he had a
good reason for doing what he did, and the officer ends up looking an idiot –
and thus losing the respect necessary to do his job.
OTHER
POINTS RE: DELIVERY
Apart from the
need to be graceful, there are a couple of other things which can help make
correction more effective. The first is that we should explain our concern very
clearly. A colossal number of divisions within the Body of Christ are simply due
to inadequate levels of communication. We need to make sure there is no room for
misunderstanding. In this regard it is usually also helpful to ration
our criticisms rather than expressing a whole raft of them in one go. For, not
only does the latter approach run the risk of pushing the other person’s
carnal side beyond what they can handle, but it may also mean that some of our
criticisms end up not getting explained fully.
We also need to
consider the gender, and relative age, of the person we are attempting to
correct. For example, according to Scripture, a person seeking to bring
correction to a significantly older individual (say, more than 20% older) needs
to be very careful to give the correction in a respectful manner. 1 Timothy 5:1
states: “Rebuke not an elder, but
entreat him as a father”. I well remember an occasion when I rebuked an elder.
I paid a heavy price for doing so because, although it was very mildly worded, I
gave my rebuke in public – which greatly embarrassed the person who had
introduced me to this elder and prompted him to privately rubbish me
(unjustifiably) to that elder for several years afterwards.
Following nicely
on from this anecdote, a further recommendation I would make is that correction
should normally be done privately.
Trying to correct someone in front of other people can sometimes work well (hence 1 Tim.
5:20
), but it can also REDUCE the
likelihood of the correction being accepted. It’s generally far better to try
bringing it in private first. (If, for whatever reason, you strongly suspect
that the other party will not listen to you, it may be possible to ask a mutual
friend to bring the correction instead – but obviously this route must only be
taken with care and discretion.)
I am not
following Matthew 18 in this regard because that passage only refers to private
trespass against us rather than adherence to some wrong doctrine or
practice. [For proof of this, and for solid advice on how to handle these types of
personal conflict, see endnote [2].]
EXTRA
POINTS TO CONSIDER
My talk today is
not an exhaustive discussion of this whole subject, but merely some tips I’ve
picked up over the years. There are just two further pieces of advice I want to
offer on the best way to bring correction. Firstly, in some cases it is more
helpful to communicate our concerns through a letter rather than bringing them verbally. Writing is often the best
approach if the point at issue will require careful or substantial explanation.
It is also often the wisest route on those occasions where we are unlikely to
express ourselves well in person – perhaps because we have a weak short-term
memory or because we might get flustered (e.g. because we do not know the other
party very well, or because they are not terribly open to correction)...
I say this
because a letter allows us to draft and redraft our phraseology as many times as
we need in order to get the most godly and effective wording possible.
Additionally, many people find it far easier to accept admonition by reading
something on their own than by being criticized in person. (Indeed, people find
it even easier to accept correction
from an item, e.g. a book, by a third
party. It just makes matters less personal – so people feel less humiliated
– and, as I say, the important thing is that the individual gets corrected,
even if it takes a bit more effort on our part.)
Although such
indirect approaches must be used with caution, since a letter obviously lacks
the human intonation etc that we would naturally communicate if we were dealing
with the person face-to-face, nevertheless such methods do also allow the
‘correctee’ time to consider the issue properly before having to supply any
response. Face-to-face correction, or correction given over the ’phone,
affords the person vastly less time to chew the matter over before needing to
give some sort of reply. And this brings me happily to my final thought on how
best to bring correction…
Specifically, we frequently cannot expect the other person to change, or
even to accept our correction, there and
then. This is especially true: (a)
if the person is not very mature spiritually, or (b)
if the issue we are seeking to correct is something the person has believed for
a long time or is something they have taught a lot of other people, or (c)
if our correction represents a major shift in their worldview. In such cases it
is only fair, once we have made our point clearly and fully, that the other
person be allowed to take it away, check the Word, meditate on it, and ask
others about it...
If the person
seems unresponsive while we are trying to correct them, we really do have to
learn to ‘back off’ and give them space to consider our concern in their own
time rather than to keep hammering them with the same point on that one occasion
– which will only get both sides agitated (and therefore at risk of saying
something they will regret). After all, there is seldom any desperate
hurry for the person to change, and a surprisingly large proportion of such
people will take your comments seriously when they mull them over during the
subsequent hours and days.
CONCLUSION
Well, that’s it. When being
corrected, we need to be Careful, Open, Amiable and Thankful. (One way to
remember this is c – o – a – t, or ‘coat’.) And when giving
correction we need to be Careful, Amiable and Prayerful (which could be
summarized as c - a - p or ‘cap’.) Whichever situation we find ourselves in,
let’s make sure we’re ‘covered’ with our coat or cap.
Alongside the
need for truth, what I particularly want to stress today is the need to be loving
to one another, i.e. loving to the brethren. If a person does not treat the
brethren in a charitable, loving way then 1 John 3 (part of which formed our
second reading this morning) says that this person is not
a believer. For example, verse 10 says “In this
the children of God are manifest, and the
children of the devil: whosoever
doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither
he that loveth not his brother.” And verse 14 reads “We know
that we have passed from death unto life, because we love
the brethren. He that loveth not
his brother abideth in death”. (The
Word says this because, if we do not genuinely love our brothers in the Lord
then we are clearly not in touch with the true God – else His Spirit would be
supplying us with more than enough of the love, and desire to love others, that
we need.)
In closing, we must
be prepared to give correction – and at least as prepared to receive
correction – because both are paramount if we want this Fellowship to be all
it can be. If we want this church to be blameless, if we want it to hear God, if
we want it to be salt and light in this area, if we want it to grow; whatever we
want for our lives and for this church, it all starts with truth – and it all
ends with truth.
Any questions?
Thank you for listening, and God
bless you.
Endnotes
[1]
The book is called Alpha – the
Unofficial Guide: Overview. See the ‘Better Than Rubies’ section of our
website (bayith.org) for more details and for stockists.
[2]
For a good, if rather direct, piece which proves that Matthew 18 only applies to
private transgression against us rather than, for instance, to public teaching,
see Paul Proctor, ‘Heretics and Hypocrites’, 08:May:2005, http://newswithviews.com/PaulProctor/proctor70.htm.
For helpful material on how to handle Matthew-18-type challenges, see the
article by Jay Adams, ‘Forgiveness’,
first published in Evangelical Times,
1997, or Ken Sande, ‘Forgive as God Forgave You’, which is a chapter from
his book The Peacemaker (Baker Books,
1997).
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