Rebuking in Community

I get into more trouble with the word “rebuke” than with just about any other.  Perhaps I could find a bit less loaded of an English word to translate this concept, but it’s an important one.  I mentioned teaching about “the skills of rebuking and being rebuked.” This tends to disturb people.

Why?  I think it is because we associate rebuking in the church with the high and might leaders getting up in their seats of judgment and telling all the lesser mortals in the pews how wrong they are.  But that concept of rebuking is neither the Biblical pattern for a church congregation, nor is it the sort of thing I’m trying to teach.  It’s expressed well in Proverbs 27:5 – “Open rebuke is better than secret love.”

Let me illustrate this first gently based on my experience with marriage and business partnership.  My wife is also my business partner.  When we first got married, she was slow to criticize my writing.  She felt that being too negative when I gave her something to read would annoy me.  But when I give an unpublished paper to anyone to read, I like to get it back all marked up.  I may not agree with all the suggestions, but I like to have a chance to consider them and make the final product better.  It is very hard to convince me that a first draft is really good.  (Blog posts only get a couple of passes, and I usually find annoying errors in them if I read them again later.)

So the first step was for Jody to realize that I didn’t mind having the page marked up.  The next step was for me to express properly my desire to discuss some of those points without criticizing her for making the corrections, but still discussing them in detail.  I remember one story I wrote in which she suggested a change in the name of one of the characters.  I didn’t get it at all.  Then she explained that I had painted an excellent picture via my use of names of a multi-ethnic group, and that this one name change rounded out the picture.  I changed the name, re-read the scene, and she was absolutely right.

Now she is quite merciless on my writing, and totally unconcerned with what I accept or reject of her suggestions.  That combination is tremendously helpful.  It means she’ll make even marginal suggestions, things she isn’t sure are better, but are options I should consider.  This kind of iron sharpening iron is extremely valuable to both of us.

Now when she’s writing and I’m checking, I have to reverse that.  I have to be willing to make suggestions while she makes the final decision on what she’s going to include in her own final work.  There’s no one sitting in the high judgment seat issuing edicts as to the right and wrong final result.  We check one another.

We have a similar situation in science and scholarship when they are working well.  Scholars write papers and expect criticism.  They don’t expect never to have to revise a viewpoint.  Very few scholars I know will accept the word of one expert as the final answer on any particular topic.  If they disagree, they’re willing to do so.  Often this debate does get acrimonious, but at it’s best, it’s vigorous and direct, yet done without anger.  (Annoyance is natural, I think, when one finds one has been caught out on some point!)

In my view, however, church rebuke has been formalized to the point of uselessness.  If we could go back to 1 Corinthians 14 on the conduct of the worship service, or the gathering of believers, we would see that the intention of that activity was not for the general body to gather and be instructed by the one knowledgeable person.  Rather, it was a time of exchange.  Multiple people would speak.

Amongst the prophets, concerning whom I wrote yesterday, Paul said, “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge” (1 Cor. 14:29).  If you or your congregation can’t do that I would first suggest that you have no business having prophecy in the congregation, because you will not be able to hear and discern the word of the Lord from amongst the noise.

But even if your congregation does not allow prophecy as such, I don’t think a congregation can function effectively without this capability.  Even the pastor needs to be able to hear rebuke in this sense.

Often it’s the fear of being wrong that makes rebuke so difficult.  At other times it’s the “high and mighty rebuke,” either formally or informally.  Don’t assume that just because your church doesn’t formally divide the leadership that such a thing is going on.  I have observed many, many supposedly free worship services, in which the activities were supposed to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit rather than a prescribed order of service, and in almost all cases I can very quickly identify the human leaders of the group.  The Holy Spirit may be leading, but He had better talk only to the right people, or the instruction won’t get through.

Rebuking in community involves both learning how to give rebuke and how to receive it.  Giving it requires an attitude that allows the person receiving to make their own choice.  Receiving rebuke requires not putting down the one giving it if you believe you should not make the change suggested.  It’s a matter of community, working together to build one another up.  “Edify” or “build up” is another key word from 1 Corinthians 14.