Proverbs 28:23 Whoever rebukes a person will in the end gain favor rather than one who has a flattering tongue.
Agreeability. I confess, I love being agreeable, especially when it concerns people’s belief systems. It wasn’t that long ago when my wife Yolanda and I had a rather large dinner party of mostly believers. As a point of clarification, I operate under the assumption that Christian’s fall into two camps, nouns and verbs. The nouns are believers, they believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, go to church on Sunday, volunteer randomly and maybe listen to Christian music outside of church. Then there are the verbs, also known as followers; people dedicated to reflecting the life of Christ. One group isn’t better than the other; there is no question of salvation between the two groups, one chooses to become endlessly better people by dying to self each day, intentionally. Now that we are working from the same definition, the dinner party was mostly followers, a handful of believers and a couple skeptics. It wasn’t all the long ago that I considered myself a skeptic. My point of skepticism was rooted in John 14:6, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” I just couldn’t get behind Jesus being the narrow path to the Father. Luckily for me, a handful of people came into my life at just the right moment and had an opportunity to rebuke that skepticism right out of my mind. That night at the dinner party, I found myself in the opposite chair, fully a follower of Jesus, and fully believing he is the only Way to heaven, could I rebuke my dinner guests new age philosophy? As it turns out, no, I couldn’t.
Not wanting to upset any apple carts I become agreeable to their way of thinking. It’s easier to keep the peace anyway, right? This was months ago and much has changed since that night, for starters, silent rebukes are every moment occurrence for me as Jesus cleanses forty-four years of blindness. Additionally, I’ve recently read Job, Ecclesiastes and now Proverbs (daily), all of which were written well before Jesus’ time on Earth. They don’t call these books the wisdom gospels for nothing. Besides, if you are going to follow Jesus it’s a good idea to read the how-to manual, the same one He memorized by heart; the Old Testament. Equipped with the same source material as Jesus, we gain His wisdom and knowledge. Let’s not forget the wisdom gospel of the New Testament, the book of James, written by Jesus’ half-brother. In a pervious Proverb’s post I talked about life verses, another life verse is James 1:22, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Those are some of the best words written in the Bible, pure truth. At what point are we ready to be bold in our faith? How can we remain rooted, even when overcome with the fear of persecution, like me at the dinner party? Fight, flight, or freeze comes to mind here; I froze.
We must be comfortable in our new skin, no longer justifying our faults. A place where, internally, we welcome sanctification, because we know it’s where favor is born. I’m a closet sinner. Most of my sin lives in my mind, hidden from the outside world, where darkness likes to grow and consume. If I’m not welcoming Jesus into my life daily, I’m not in sanctification, and if I’m not in sanctification then there is no internal rebuke, and transformation has U-turned into justification. Sometimes, a Proverb is meant to face inward, not outward. While I’m confident to share the gospel at dinner in rebuke to a new age ideology or idolatry; I’m still a sinner. As such, self-flattery is much easier than self-rebuke and I often find the lenses of hindsight much clearer. With Christianity, as with any verb, there is no end to the action. Any righteous rebuking not precipitated with a close examination of one’s inner most self (think saw dust and plank) then we’ve only climbed a mountain of pride and let loose an arrow of self-righteousness. To gain favor, first turn the wisdom gospels inward, do what the Bible says, be bold unto your own sin, confess it and make sure to always have the wise lenses of hindsight with you.