Rebuke and I will love you
Mar 22
Proverbs 9 8…rebuke a wise man and he will love you.
9 Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still;
teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning.
Do we take the time to rebuke each other – even those who are wise already? I find that this is one area of the church that we are really weak and do it poorly. We are so concerned about offense and not offending our brother that we no longer use rebuke which is a spiritual tool. If we understand that to rebuke a wise man means we are adding to his understanding and he will love us, we would do it more often.
In fact scripture here in vs 8 says that if we rebuke a wise man he will love us. This comes from wisdom where the man being rebuked realises that rebuke with good intention is for his own good and so he is blessed and rather than being offended he is pleased that someone loves him enough to not leave him on a path that leads to sin or destruction. We can’t be wise in all things and so in some areas we need rebuke.
You can tell how wise you are by how you react when a friend or colleague tells you something that you need to change and how you react to that. This is of course if someone out there has enough guts to tell you the truth in love.