Theocentric Musings

This is a great post by way of my friend Frank Viola, you can visit his blog here, http://frankviola.org/2012/05/21/howtocorrectanother/ , enjoy: How (Not) to Correct Another Christian By Frank Viola When I was a young Christian in my late teens, I was “rebuke-happy.” I had no problem confronting and correcting the faults of others. The people I looked up to modeled this to me, and I benightedly followed their example. I knew the Scriptures well; so I was cocked and loaded for bear with my Bible verses in hand. Some of my favorite texts at the time were those in Proverbs that say wise people love reproof and fools hate it (Proverbs 9:8; 12:1; 13:1, etc.) As I grew in the Lord, I came to some painful discoveries. One of them was that I had no idea how to correct another believer in the spirit of Jesus Christ. And I did more damage than good with my “corrections.” Another was that God didn’t want me correcting everyone else, even when I spotted faults and flaws in others ...

Meditate on this, by way of Frank Viola, check him out on his webpage,http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankviola/warning/: Civil disagreement and even debate, when done in the spirit of Christ, are healthy and helpful. But when disagreements descend into second-guessing motives, distortions of one another’s words, mischaracterizations of one another’s views, and personal attacks, then we’ve moved into the flesh. The net is that the name of Jesus gets tarnished in no small way. So how do we change that? Here are 7 points to consider the next time you think you have a possible disagreement with another Christian: 1. Go to them privately and ask them what they meant by what they said, did, or wrote or what they allegedly said, did, or wrote. Jesus said to go to your brother/sister in private if we have an issue with them. Since we don’t want to misrepresent others in public, going to them directly helps prevent this. And you would want the same treatment if the shoe happened to be on yo...