Author: henry

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  But when I give an unpublished paper to anyone to read, I like to get it back all marked up.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.

In a comment to a previous post, Kris asks whether Christians are required to tithe.  That was one of two questions and I divided them into two posts to allow for separate discussions of the question.

I don’t find tithing in the New Testament.  Now I’m not a purely “New Testament” believer.  I believe that principles God puts forth in the Old Testament can remain applicable, provided that they fit within the great change of the covenants.  It’s very easy, however, to misapply such commands when one doesn’t truly look through the Christological filter.

Tithing is such a command.  I believe that with the new covenant, God’s claim is upon all that we own, and that we are to be guided by the Holy Spirit in how much of what we retain for our use.  I prefer to express it that way over how much we give, though it is very scriptural to express it as God’s guidance to give (see 2 Corinthians 8 & 9).  Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian believers is a terribly neglected book.

There is a second point about tithing that I would like to address briefly:  Where do you give?  I don’t think we have a direct command on this, though the New Testament pattern of the church would suggest that we do all of our service, whether in labor or in finances, through our local “church of Christ” or our congregation.  I personally make it a spiritual discipline to give a certain amount through my local congregation, trusting that body to use it wisely to build the kingdom, even when I may have doubts.

In preparing to answer this question I found an essay by David Alan Black, author of two books from my company, who makes some similar points and provides more scripture.  Though I was already convinced of essentially what Dr. Black says on the topic, I was glad to find it laid out in a compact, scripturally supported fashion.

Advent Week 3 in The Mosaic Bible includes 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, which is a wonderful passage to use with regard to to prophecy.  For those who may be following my use of The Mosaic Bible with the Revised Common Lectionary let me note that two passages, Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Luke 3:7-20 either are the same as those in the RCL for Advent 3C or overlap.

I’ve just written a post on my Threads blog that explains, amongst other things, why I use the label “charismatic.”  It’s because I believe all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are available today.  This must, of course, include the gift of prophecy.  I have always had a problem in that while I believe the gift of prophecy continues in theory, or perhaps I should say I have no theological reason why it should not, I have been loathe to point to someone and say, “That person is a prophet.”

Of course, there is little reason I should set myself up as some sort of judge of prophets, a rather arrogant thing to do, but it is certainly a question I get asked.  If I believe in prophecy, I should believe in prophets, right?  So where are they?

I suggest that while there is no theological problem with the continuation of prophecy, there is a practical problem, and that practical problem is illuminated by 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22:

19 Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.
20 Do not scoff at prophecies,
21 but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good.
22 Stay away from every kind of evil.  (NLT)

I recall two experiences that I think help illustrate my point.  The first was when I was jointly teaching a seminar on the gift of prophecy, and the person teaching with me, who was well acquainted with the charismatic movement (as I was not at the time), told the audience that if they had been involved in the charismatic community over the previous few years, they had been awash in false prophecy.  It was interesting that the statement did not elicit any outrage from the many charismatics and Pentecostals in the room.  They were not unaware that false prophecy had been going on.

The second was after another class I taught, in which I had discussed the skills of rebuking and being rebuked, when I was informed that informed that in their church they only allowed encouraging prophecies to be spoken.  They didn’t do rebuke.  Apart from the odd idea that one can decide just which “words from the Lord” one will receive, most of the prophetic writings of scripture involve rebuke of one sort or another.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul makes several points.  I’ve heard the first part preached quite frequently.  Don’t quench the Spirit, don’t despise prophecies.  Often the point made from these texts is that people should not forbid or deny the modern gift of prophecy.  But one should read on.

“Test everything.”  If you test, there will be success and failure conditions.  Paul doesn’t miss those.  He says to hold fast what is good.  You know, I’ve heard sermons from this passage that cut off right after that point.  But Paul goes on to tell us to keep away from every form of evil.

There are two results from the test–good, and evil.  If we are unwilling to identify what is wrong, we will not be in a position to identify what is right.

I would suggest, in fact, that one can just as effectively “quench the Spirit” and “despise prophecies” by accepting everything as a valid prophecy or shying away from correcting problems or abuses as one can do so by denying all forms of prophecy.

Discernment involves the test itself along with a willingness to accept or reject what is said.  Without the ability to say “no” to prophecy in the church, we cannot say “yes” with any safety.

(Note:  I wrote on this issue a few months ago under the title The Advantages of Stoning False Prophets.)