When my wife, Janine, and I were small-group leaders some years ago, I remember confronting a member of our group about gossip. Many small-group leaders have members they consider “high maintenance,” and this was one such person. She had left her previous church because of unresolved conflict. Before long, I realized that each time she was challenged in some area of her life she would move on to a new group. So even though she was in her fifties, she had a lot of growing to do. In fact, she was facing a number of behavioral issues, and in many ways she needed to be re-parented at a very basic level. She loved to call and talk at length, and on one of these occasions I heard her speaking poorly about someone else. She had done this before, and so I decided to confront her. I cut her off mid-sentence and told her I refused to listen to her speak like that any longer. She was indignant, and accused me of judging her. From that time forward she could hardly stand to be in the same room as me, and soon she dropped out of our small group.

You may think this story is about how this person was unable to receive correction. But, perhaps surprisingly, it’s actually about my receiving correction. Paul told Timothy to treat older women as he would his mother and not to rebuke an older man harshly (1 Timothy 5:1–2). Even though this person was immature, difficult to get along with and needed correction, I needed to be confronted about my attitude and the stern words I had spoken. I had to be willing to receive correction from an older woman who had a lot of baggage. In treating this person poorly, I betrayed the fact that I looked down on her. It was awkward to be corrected right in the middle of my correcting her on a legitimate issue! Wasn’t she the one who was still a child, socially and spiritually? And I thought I had a good handle on diplomacy and tact. But her response forced me to see that I had blown it, even as we talked. Later, I was able to humble myself and ask forgiveness for my rudeness and also to reflect on how I should have treated this person with the respect I would give my mother. In doing that, I believe that I began to look more like the Savior. That’s the ultimate goal in correction.

Most of us will be surprised by rebuke, especially when we thought we were doing the rebuking. When you get corrected—and you will get corrected, probably within the month—you are going to get corrected about an issue that you don’t think you need correcting on. It will come at an inconvenient time. Worst of all, it’s going to come through someone who has some of their own baggage mixed in with it. And it will be very easy to think, Whoa, what’s their problem?

Why we need correction

The Book of Proverbs talks about this sort of thing in three ways. It speaks of listening to instruction, receiving correction and embracing rebuke. Now if you are really a student of Jesus—if you are serious about following Christ as your master and teacher—then you’re going to need instruction and correction and, at times, rebuke. Instruction comes easy enough: “Turn left here.” It’s sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to what he says about life and godliness. Correction is a little harder: “You missed the turn. Let’s turn around and try it again.” Correction is needed when we haven’t listened to instruction. Rebuke is a bit stronger. It suggests the presence of anger: “Are you really that dull? I said left, not right. You shouldn’t be driving at all. Pull over!” Rebuke has an edge to it. But it is precisely that edge that cuts into the place where that word needs to go. As Proverbs 9:8 puts it, “A scoffer who is rebuked will only hate you; the wise, when rebuked, will love you.” Further along, we are told, “The ear that heeds wholesome admonition will lodge among the wise. Those who ignore instruction despise themselves, but those who heed admonition gain understanding” (Proverbs 15:31–32). And again in Proverbs 17:10, “A rebuke strikes deeper into a discerning person more than a hundred blows into a fool.”

Proverbs draws a straight line between embracing rebuke and gaining wisdom. The one who wants to be wise will listen to instruction, accept correction and embrace rebuke as one would hug a friend. In fact, Proverbs 3:12 seems to be at the heart of Revelation 3:19 when the Lord is bringing his biting rebuke to the Church of Laodicea: “The Lord reproves the one he loves.”

Psalm 51—David’s response to rebuke

Look at how David responds to the rebuke of Nathan the prophet. In 2 Samuel 12, David was confronted by Nathan for his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, her husband, in an attempt to cover it up. Nathan first told David a tale about a rich man who stole and killed a poor man’s precious sheep. David was incensed, and said that the man who committed such a heinous act should die. Nathan then surprised David by saying, “You are that man!”

Nathan’s rebuke of David came from the side. The good ones usually do. They surprise us. In fact, just like me with the gossiping group member, David saw himself in the role of the judge and the one needing to do the correcting. Then after David pronounced his rebuke, Nathan showed David the hidden mirror. Wham!

Nearly the same thing happened to Peter. Jesus gave Peter high praise for figuring out he was the Messiah and included some incredible promises. But then Jesus started to talk about all the nasty things that would happen to him in order for Scripture to be fulfilled. Peter, trying out his new role as rock of the Church, pulled Jesus aside and rebuked him, saying in effect, “You’re not thinking like a Messiah, Jesus. Don’t you ever talk like that again.” Jesus showed Peter that he was the one thinking as the world thinks, and was in fact speaking on behalf of Jesus’ enemy, the Devil, who was trying to lure him away from doing the right thing in order to do the easy thing. So it is that rebuke can come when we’re in the midst of correcting someone else for something they’ve said or done. But we must listen for it. If we’re not careful, we’ll miss what God has for us as a gift to build our character. We’ll be like the mocker in Proverbs rather than the wise embracer of rebuke.

David’s response was immediate. “I have sinned against the Lord,” he cried. No excuses like we tend to offer up: But Lord, you’re the one who made me this way. You gave me the hormones; I just acted on them. David didn’t try to shift the blame. He went home and threw himself on the ground. He spent a week fasting and praying and ended up writing a song, Psalm 51.

In Psalm 51:1–2, David shows that he knows the heart of God. He begins by appealing to God’s unfailing love, his great compassion and his ability to wash and to cleanse us from sin: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”

Then, in verses 3–5, David admits that he is the offender: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”

In fact, God is ultimately the one who is most offended even though our sin may have broad earthly consequences. Certainly Bathsheba, Uriah, the illegitimate child, and all of David’s wives and children were victims of this fiasco. But in one sense, we can only sin against the one who made the rules and is perfect. No one else on earth is perfectly innocent. So David is suggesting that he is clearly the one at fault and God is ultimately the one who was most victimized by his sin.

David spent a week on his face in prayer and fasting before the Lord. God must have been stripping back layers of pride and defensiveness during those hours of focused worship. What was behind the actions of David’s body? What was behind the thought that led to the action? What was it, way deep down in his inmost place, that David needed to hear about himself? That’s where the wise will allow a rebuke to settle—into their inmost being where true motives can be discerned: “You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart” (verse 6).

God wants truth and wisdom in the deepest part of our being. It’s good to have right action. But we all know people who do the right thing on the outside, but on the inside they are treacherous. The Pharisees were like that. It’s also good to have right thoughts. But it is possible to seek internal health or positive thinking that is based on human philosophy and human wisdom. What God wants most is truth in the inmost parts, beyond appearances, beyond excuses, deep into the core of what motivates us.

Rebuke is important because only a sharp object is able to penetrate into the inmost place. Nathan gave David a stinging slap in the face that woke David up. David let that slap cut right into him. Because David was able to embrace that rebuke, we have, next to the Twenty-third Psalm, perhaps one of the most quoted and loved psalms of David. More importantly, David became a more passionate lover of God. In verses 16–17 David makes one of the most shocking and profound statements that a society built around ceremony and sacrifice could ever want to hear: “For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Sacrifice counts for nothing, heart posture counts for everything. You may be someone who is able to accomplish great things for the Lord. You may be such an evangelist that you can’t enter a room without a handful of hostile non-believers professing faith in Christ within an hour. You may be so prophetically gifted that whether waking or sleeping you are receiving words from God on an hourly basis. You may be a missionary in the darkest and most desperate spot on earth. But those things mean nothing in comparison to having a contrite heart—a heart that is soft, bruised, wounded and grieved over your own sin. God will take that over doing “stuff” for him any day.

There are really only a few things we can give to a God who made everything and needs nothing. One is our obedience—having the freedom to say no but choosing to say yes. God can’t force our obedience; it wouldn’t be obedience if he did. Another is a broken and contrite heart. These are things God cannot manufacture. Our obedience and contrition are from us. If you are broken-hearted before God, you may be offering him something that is more precious to him than those who teach or lead worship for your church or large group. And if rebuke can move us toward being broken-hearted before God, then it is something very special indeed. Are you willing to let a word of rebuke penetrate that deeply?

Receiving and giving rebuke

Rebuke is never easy. If all rebukes were to come in our quiet times or directly from God in a dream, that would be one thing. But it’s messier than that. Any serious disciple has to learn to sift and take in words of rebuke that come from all kinds of people—unbelievers or children or people who are struggling with sin in areas that we are strong in. If your objective is to become like Jesus, and you are fairly certain you’re not there yet, then don’t resist rebuke, even if it’s a little bit off. Listen, weigh it and take it in, because there is no growth in Christ without it.

Mission trips are great places to get rebuked. In their book, Four Souls, Mike, Matt, Jedd and Trey describe their travel together around the world, serving in orphanages, churches and prisons, in an attempt to define the “epic” Christian life. Their quest included nightly reconciliation sessions with one another. One night the conversation got quite heated, lasting until 2 a.m. It seemed to Mike that Jedd always had to express his preference for every little decision. When Mike confronted Jedd on this, the discussion rolled into argument. What qualified Mike to make such judgments? Was he so perfectly unselfish? Mike came out of a casual surfer culture that Jedd may have thought of uncharitably. In fact, when they crossed the border into Mexico it was Jedd who was troubled by Mike’s paying a bribe to get across the border. Now Mike seemed to stand in judgment over Jedd for something that Jedd probably considered less serious than paying a bribe. Even though Jedd’s defense was stiff, his heart was soft. That night he journaled, “I’m hurting. Once again, I feel I have been forced to confront how painfully far I am from the other-centered, unselfish man I want to be.” Jedd was willing to receive criticism delivered by imperfect vessels into his deepest part.

Oscar Wilde once said, “A true friend stabs you in the front.” Rebuke is certainly easier to give than to receive. If we focus too much on how how to give powerful rebukes, we might be tempted to rebuke a person for not rebuking us right, and miss what God has for our character. So let’s just say this: if you are sensing a need to rebuke someone, be sure you are hungry for that person’s maturity. You probably won’t be able to completely disentangle your rebuke from other components of irritation or selfishness, but there must be a high dose of jealousy for the other person’s character. So, when you are certain your rebuke is not based on hearsay and misinformation, and you are not attempting to judge a person’s motive, then call forth your desire for that person to be mature in Christ, setting aside as much of yourself as you can. When you’re able to do that, then you will be in the best position possible to hear the other person proclaim, as in Proverbs 27:6, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”

Scott Bessenecker has worked with InterVarsity’s Global Projects for 15 years. As director of Global Projects he helps start new projects and train the staff who lead them. Scott’s recent passion has included raising up dozens of “Mother Teresa’s” from I-V chapters through the Global Urban Trek. He is married with three children and claims to have the world’s largest evangelical international cigarette collection. Scott ­doesn’t smoke and hates milk.