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The Gift of Rebuke
How I learned to take correction - and give it.
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Samuel to Saul: "You acted foolishly… . You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time … but now your kingdom will not endure" (1 Sam. 13:13-14). Jesus to Simon Peter: "You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men" (Matt. 16:23). Paul to the Corinthians: "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it" (1 Cor. 3:1-2). Not all rebukes were welcomed. King Ahab, for example, discouraged an appearance from the prophet Micaiah, saying, "I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad" (1 Kings 22:8). I worry for the leader who doesn't want to hear hard things, who surrounds himself or herself with people who only say pleasant, positive things. Sooner or later, such leaders neutralize themselves. A good rebuke is issue-specific. Words are not minced, and the hearer has no question about what is being said. A good rebuke does not normally come off the top of someone's head; rather it is thought through carefully. It is framed in prayer and sometimes in tears. If the rebuker finds the task easy, the rebuker may need a rebuke of another kind. One of the most remarkable rebukes in the Bible came when God spoke in cross-examination form to a whining Job. After a tour-de-force through the universe, as it were, Job gets God's point and stands rebuked. "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know … my ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:3-6). I can't think of a better response to a rebuke than Job's. In his diary, dated November 22, 1722, Jonathan Edwards ponders the value of rebuke with these words: "Considering that bystanders always espy some faults which we don't see ourselves … there are many secret workings of corruption which escape our sight, and others only are sensible of: resolve therefore, that I will, if I can by any convenient means, learn what faults others find in me, or what things they see in me, that appear anyway blame-worthy, unlovely, or unbecoming." My hero, nineteenth-century Anglican pastor Charles Simeon, struggled with ego. A close friend called this tendency to his attention. A day later Simeon wrote to his mentor, Henry Venn: "What a blessing—an inestimable blessing is it to have a faithful friend! Satan is ready enough to point out whatever good we have; but it is only a faithful friend that will screen that from your sight, and show you your deficiencies. "Our great apostasy seems to consist primarily in making a god of self; and he is the most valuable friend who will draw us most from self-seeking—self-pleasing—and self-dependence and help us to restore to God the authority we have robbed him of." |             |
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