Nowhere does the Bible feel more alien than when we hear its estimation of rebuke and communal discipline:
Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it. (Psalms 141:5 ESV)
5 Better is open rebuke than hidden love. 6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy. (Proverbs 27:5–6 ESV)
It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. (Ecclesiastes 7:5 ESV)
The Bible speaks of discipline and rebuke with an almost giddy anticipation. Like peroxide on a wound there is a sharp intake of breath accompanied by the assurance that “this will do me good”. Where does that come from? I suspect it comes from experience. Psalm 141 was written by David – we know David benefitted greatly from the rebuke of Nathan. There is a sense in which Nathan’s rebuke saved David’s soul from the Abyss. As a king David was used to being surrounded by sycophants and boot lickers – he probably hadn’t heard an honest remark in decades. In the modern Western world we are all kings and queens unto ourselves and equally unused to hard truths, directly applied in face-to-face confrontation. We tend to learn the value of those confrontations only by experience.
On Sunday past I promised you a few follow up articles in recognition of the fact that we were trying to cover a lot of ground in one sermon. 1 Corinthians 5 is a hard passage and we probably didn’t say everything we should have in the time that we shared together. In particular I felt like we didn’t spend enough time talking about why the concept of correction and rebuke is so hard to deal with in the modern church. Something that is taught so clearly and so repeatedly in the New Testament ought not to feel as foreign and objectionable as this does. The reason of course is that we live in a culture that views communal authority as anathema. Nothing is quite so offensive as unsolicited advice. Nothing is quite so out of fashion as absolute truth. Nothing is more barbaric than absolute truth applied absolutely! Church discipline therefore seems utterly and entirely alien. It seems not to belong in a place that is drunk on songs of grace and unwarranted forgiveness. There is an article to be written I’m sure on the correct understanding of grace (and another probably on song writing in the church!) but the focus of this article is to reflect upon the underestimated value of community correction. I trust the first two articles served the need for theological foundation (if you missed those click here and here) so in this article I seek only to reflect on a handful of experiences that have inclined me to side with David in declaring:
Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head (Psalm 141:5)
The first encounter I had with community correction happened in the context of a mentoring relationship at the Boys J.I.M. Club of America. J.I.M. Club is a Christian Leadership Training Camp for boys age 8-14. I attended for 6 years as a camper and 4 years as a counselor. In my C.I.T. year (Counselor In Training) I was assigned to an older boy for mentoring. His name was Reuben and he was perhaps 4-5 years older than I. I imagined Reuben to be quite impressed with me as a C.I.T. – after all, I was one of the few boys to have achieved Hall of Fame in both preaching and gospel magic – it must have been a real honour for Reuben to be assigned as my mentor. Reuben quickly proved more insightful than I had thought. As we sat together on the Moose Field he told me that the biggest barrier to my usefulness to God was my enormous ego. He looked me right in the eye and told me that I was the most arrogant boy he had ever met. I thought too much of myself in every conceivable way. I thought my insights more penetrating than anyone else’s, my stories more worth listening to, my talents more remarkable and my prospects more unlimited. He told me quite simply that if I didn’t learn humility then I would never be good for anything with respect to the Lord’s service.
You would have to ask Reuben how I responded to that because I think I went blank for at least 60 seconds. No one had ever said anything like that to me. I was a 14 year old boy and he was an 18 year old boy – I may have been too proud for hero worship but my admiration for Reuben was high enough that his words had real gravity. They settled on me and I can feel them still. I don’t think I remember another conversation from that summer, but I remember that one. Every time I interrupt someone else’s story with one of mine which is obviously funnier or more insightful I remember that day and that rebuke. It has become ballast in my soul. I have no idea how to contact Reuben and I can’t remember his last name. I know he was from Toronto and attended People’s Church but I’d sure like to tell him how useful that conversation has been to me these last 26 years. I’m sure I wouldn’t be where I am now had he not rebuked me then.
The second encounter I had with church discipline kind of grew out of the second. The Boys’ J.I.M. Club of America had become “the place where I did business with God”. In my immaturity I had come to sectionalize my spiritual life. Camp was for serious growth and soul searching, school was for fun and foolishness. I thought no one noticed but I was wrong. In the September of my grade 11 year I was surprised not to have been invited onto the Youth Group Leadership Team. Other students, far less qualified than I (see issue raised above!) had been invited in their grade 11 year, why not me? My Youth Pastor, David Horne, could have let the issue ride but he decided to explain to me his reasoning. He looked me right in the eye and said plainly: “You don’t fool me. You think you are this great, gifted Christian kid because you go to that camp and you preach in churches but you leave all of that behind you every summer. I see a kid who is not serious about holiness at school. You show me that you can be the same boy at school that you are at camp and I’ll put you on the leadership team.” That’s a good youth pastor. He was right of course. I was a totally different kid at camp than I was at school. Both of those kids were me – there was a 16 year old Paul that loved Jesus and loved the Word and wanted to share the way of salvation with people – and there was a 16 year old Paul that loved AC/DC, getting into hockey fights and acting like a goof on weekends. I wasn’t being hypocritical, I was being authentically schizophrenic in a typically adolescent way. I hadn’t decided which Paul I was going to be and Pastor Dave called me on it. Integrity means being the same guy everywhere you go. I didn’t have it and leaders need it. Dave made me want to be the same guy in every place God put me. I’ve thanked Dave before for his role in my life – in fact he prayed at my ordination service. I would never have become a pastor if it were not for Dave Horne. His rebuke saved my future ministry.
My third encounter with community correction came at the hands of my first supervising pastor. When I first started out in ministry I was a part time youth worker at Calvary Baptist Church in Oakville, Ontario. I was still in school and working part time in order to get experience. The senior pastor was a man named Derrick Tapper. One summer, I think between my second and third years there, I became very agitated because all of the administration associated with my position seemed hopelessly stalled. My position description had changed and there was to be larger role and a more substantial remuneration that included some rental help – a good thing for a starving student! For some reason I couldn’t fathom nothing was in place by the last week of August and I felt entitled to some righteous frustration. I met with Derrick to express a measure of consternation. The rebuke he gave me was as unexpected as it was helpful. Apparently I had completely missed the fact that the person dealing with my administrative situation was undergoing a personal crisis. I had recognized his absence but hadn’t enquired into it and was horrified to discover that he had been dealing with a family issue. I felt like an idiot because I was an idiot. Derrick looked me in the eye and said: “Paul, you have a sense of entitlement that you are going to need to get over if you want to be useful in ministry. Not everything is about you. Grow up, settle down and be patient. Learn to be aware of other people’s needs.” That was one of the most humiliating conversations I’ve ever had – and also one of the most helpful. He was right. I hadn’t been thinking about the other person’s needs – I had been thinking about my needs! What kind of a pastor would I be if I didn’t notice when people working in the same office as me were undergoing crisis? That was a helpful wake up call. I have a task-oriented personality which serves me well in some respects but to that I’ve tried to add an awareness of human need. I don’t want to be the busy Levite passing by on the wrong side of the road, (Luke 10:32) I want to be the one who sees and stops. Derrick’s rebuke got me thinking and leaning in that direction.
In my experience as a pastor, the arguments against any practice of community correction are based in narrative rather than principle. Meaning that when I meet someone who finds the exercise of discipline to be “unloving” or “excessively authoritarian” the chances are that they will not attempt to support that viewpoint with chapter and verse but rather with story and memory. They will share a time when discipline was done poorly and when correction was done with impure motives or to divisive effect. To counter that we need to support chapter and verse with story and memory. Let’s tell some stories of community correction gone aright. Let’s tell some stories about how we’ve been helped and well served by the wounds of a friend. This article is my attempt to get the ball rolling. I invite you to share your stories in the comment section below.
To God Be The Glory,
Paul Carter