LUKE 17:3 - AN UNDERAPPRECIATED COMMAND

Not only is this command underappreciated, it is vastly underapplied:

Check out Luke 17:3-4 "If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them, and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying 'I repent,' you must forgive them."

I see at least three really difficult commands which are to guide our response to a fellow believer sinning against us. Let's take a closer look at the first:

1) "Rebuke them." This involves standing up for yourself and directly confronting this person who sinned against you. Pointing out that he or she has hurt you and admonishing him or her for it. Face to face. There is nothing harder and nothing rarer inside Christian circles. 

Consider the wide distance between what Jesus COMMANDS and what we typically DO.

When a brother or sister in Christ does something to hurt us, we typically:

- Complain to other people about how that person hurt us. We will never tire of repeating the story to anybody and everybody ... except the one person we should be talking to.

- Run down his or her reputation to other people. After all, we reason, everyone else ought to know exactly "what type of person" this is! Once we have drawn our own conclusion, it begs to be spread far and wide. 

- Find allies. "Oh, you were also hurt by this person? Well, you won't believe what he did to ME!"

- Go over his or her head. If we're really worked up, we might "demand to see the manager". In extreme cases, especially in this current American cultural climate, it is no longer unusual even to seek the termination of the offending person's job or entire career. (If we're lucky, we're allowed to do this anonymously!)

Notice what all these responses have in common:

1) The offender is never confronted.

2) Therefore the offender never has the chance to repent. Or explain his or her actions. 

3) The offended has no genuine interest in reconciliation. 

4)  The offended feels an incredible sense of self-righteousness.

5) Most importantly: These responses constitute flat out disobedience to God's word.

It is fitting that I should find myself writing about this particular topic on this particular day. One year ago today we left Haiti, not knowing that we were, in fact, moving back to Indiana. The points I have made here are lived experience and lessons I have been digesting for a year now. To be clear, I understand both sides of this equation very well because I recognize myself as having been, at various times, in both roles: the offender and the offended. 

So I say to you and I say to myself: No matter how difficult we find it, when we are offended by a fellow believer, in big ways or small, we must start obeying Luke 17:3 and go directly to the one who has hurt us. 

Anything short of complete obedience is sin.