How to CONFRONT & CORRECT (and How NOT to)

Genuine believers are to be submitted to one another (Ephesians 5:21), which means we’re accountable to each other based on the morality of New Covenant Christianity and the corresponding God-breathed Scriptures (2 Timothy 3:16-17 & 1 Corinthians 4:6). The biblical book of wisdom puts it like this: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17). This principle keeps believers sharp and the best they can be thus “open rebuke is better than hidden love” (Proverbs 27:5).

You can learn a lot about the character of a person by how they respond to a legitimate correction:

⁸Do not rebuke mockers [proud fools] or they will hate you;
rebuke the wise and they will love you.
⁹Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still;
teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.

Proverbs 9:8-9

Of course, no one appreciates a disrespectful correction or an exasperating overreaction, not even wise, godly people. In fact, an arrogant, impulsive rebuke shows that the one doing the correcting has moral issues likely greater than the one he/she is trying to correct. Keep in mind that carnal pride is sin numero uno, a decidedly satanic trait (Ezekiel 28:17, 1 Timothy 3:6 & 1 John 2:16).

Humility, by contrast, is thoroughly spiritual and conducive to grace, i.e. God’s favor (James 4:6 & 1 Peter 5:5).

What the Messiah Instructed about Rebuke

What did Christ say about confrontation & potential correction? (I say “potential correction” because the rebuke might not be valid). When a brother or sister in the Lord offends you, here’s what the Lord said to do:

“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. ⁴ 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.”

Luke 17:3-4

The Messiah was not talking about a serious crime here, like rape, assault, robbery or the murder of a loved one. If someone commits a crime like this you need to take it to the governing authorities, which are established by God to punish criminals, including the power to execute when appropriate: “they are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:1-6).

So Christ was talking about personal offenses, like snubbing, malicious gossip (aka backbiting), insults, lying, minor theft and so forth. It could also be a situation where you observe the individual do something immoral, like committing adultery, lying, slandering or being a drunkard. When fellow believers offend in this manner they should first be confronted & corrected based on the moral truths of the Word of God, then, forgiven if they repent. ‘Forgive’ literally means to “cancel the debt” or “dismiss the charge.” When the offender is stubbornly unrepentant we are not to dismiss the offense. Jesus specified this condition in more detail here:

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. ¹⁶ But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ ¹⁷ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Matthew 18:15-17

When a fellow believer sins against us we’re not to gossip about it to others, but rather go to the offending person in private and share with them what they did to offend. As far as is possible, we should do this with a humble, compassionate spirit, which sometimes might be challenging because the offense in question is so offensive.

If the offender refuses to repent then we are to get one or two spiritual believers and confront the person again. I emphasize spiritual believers because if you enlist a carnal Christian into the scenario it will not help the situation to say the least (I’m talking about someone who says they’re a believer, but regularly produce bad fruit like arrogance, greed, gossip and lying). The inclusion of additional godly people will naturally help make sure the charge is authentic.

If the offender is still impenitent then we’re to tell it to the church in general so that the person is socially pressured to ’fess up and make a turnaround. If the offender continues to be stubborn and unrepentant then we’re to regard him/her as a pagan or tax-collector. A pagan is an unbeliever, which means you stop treating the person as if they were a brother or sister in the Lord because his/her actions have proven otherwise.

You can read details about confrontation & correction here, what we want to focus on in this article is…

Things to Do and NOT do when Confronting & Correcting

Make sure you have a scriptural basis for your correction since it is the foundation “for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). If you cannot articulate from the rightly-divided Word of God what’s wrong with the behavior in question then your case is too weak for a confrontation.
Don’t say “Yay, the Holy Spirit told me to tell you” because (A) it comes off as religious arrogance and (B) you don’t need to say this if your rebuke has a legitimate biblical foundation. Keep in mind that the Scriptures were written by the Holy Spirit thru divinely designated people (2 Peter 1:21) so any moral correction of the Holy Spirit should already be conveyed in the Bible, directly or indirectly.
Speaking of which, don’t rebuke a person for a moral rule that’s not actually biblical. People who do this are infected by legalism, which is law-ism. It’s a religious obsession with rules, usually unscriptural rules, and the despotic enforcement of them. A couple of good examples would be playing pool or cards. There’s nothing intrinsically evil about these games; they’re neutral activities relevant to healthy R&R (Ecclesiastes 3:4), which of course doesn’t mean you have to like them or play them. If you don’t like them, don’t play them. The real reason legalists denounce these games is because pool is associated with bars & the corresponding drunkenness while card-playing is associated with gambling. In the 2000s I had a pool room in my house, but there was zero drunkenness linked to it. A person can enjoy pool and not be a drunkard. Similarly, people can play card games and not froth at the mouth with greed & corruption. By all means, rebuke drunkard-ness and greedy corruption as led of the Spirit, but not playing pool and card games. Allow the Spirit to minister to individuals about whether or not it’s wise for them to participate in a particular neutral activity.
Don’t overreact to what you perceive as a moral offense because it might not be a sin at all. Rather, the problem could be over-sensitivity on your part because you’re weak in a certain area (we’re all weak in one area or another). At worst, the behavior in question might just be unwise. For instance, an ex-alcoholic believer sees a brother drinking an alcoholic beverage and assumes he’s a drunkard, thus rebuking him. Yet the confronted brother walks in moderation and isn’t tempted by drunkenness in the slightest. In a case like this, the brother isn’t sinning because drinking a sip of alcohol is not a sin; rather being a drunkard is what is sinful. However, depending on the location, you could exhort him that it’s not wise to drink an alcoholic beverage in public because it could make a brother or sister with a weak conscience stumble. It could also be a bad ‘witness.’ In such cases the believer should “keep it between himself (or herself) and God” (Romans 14:22); in other words, it should wisely be kept private. For biblical insights on the believer’s freedom in relation to dealing with Christians with weak consciences see Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8.
Since your goal is to correct the person, not unnecessarily offend or antagonize him/her, phrase your correction in a respectable manner. This is especially so if the person is your elder, whether physically or spiritually, which corresponds to this passage: “Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble’ ” (1 Peter 5:5). The fact that someone is more mature than you physically or spiritually does not mean you shouldn’t correct him/her, but it does mean you should apply appropriate respect, particularly if you want the correction to be received (assuming it’s even legitimate). There’s a right way to do something and a wrong way. Even if your intentions are righteous, there’s a wrong way to carry out a correction — like being rash, excessive or disrespectful — which will naturally reduce the chances of it being received. Remember: Your goal is to successfully correct the person. A good example in the Scriptures is when Paul openly corrected the elder apostle Peter (Galatians 2:6-14). The reprimand was received because Paul used wisdom in what he said, how he said it and what he didn’t say (because he didn’t need to say it).
When you implement the confrontation be open to receiving correction yourself since “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17). In fact, it may be you who needs correction more so than the person you’re rebuking. In such situations the Holy Spirit turns the confrontation around on the wannabe rebuker. This is one of the reasons why going directly to the offending person and discussing the issue is so wise and effective.
Speaking of wannabe rebukers, please don’t be a “gung-ho rebuker.” Confrontation & correction is a positive thing if the reprimand is valid, not to mention the boldness required to do this is commendable. It’s an example of walking in tough love. However, being an annoying faultfinder who’s perpetually “offended” and quick to accuse is not a good thing. For one thing, it smacks of pettiness.Remember, those who make a battle out of everything won’t have the energy for building anything, at least not anything positive.Another problem with constant questionable accusations is that it’s a trait of the Enemy. I’m talking about Satan — the “adversary” or “enemy” — who is also called the devil, which is translated from the Greek diabolos (dee-AB-ol-os), meaning “slanderer.” The term comes from the verb diaballó (dee-ab-AL-loh), meaning “to slander, accuse, defame, complain.” On top of this, the Bible plainly describes Satan as “the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night” (Revelation 12:10). Moreover, Christ called the devil a “murderer from the beginning” and “the father of lies” (John 8:44). Do you know a (supposed) brother or sister in the Lord — including “ministers” — that continuously faultfind & accuse believers? They’re behaving like Satan, which isn’t a good thing. Either they’re a child of the devil and therefore a counterfeit believer (Matthew 7:15-23 & John 8:42-47) or they’re grossly ignorant and misled of the Enemy (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

Make no mistake, honest correction is sometimes necessary; it’s a healthy thing because it keeps believers sharp. Just be sure to follow these seven wise guidelines.

But what if you know confronting a certain person will turn UGLY? In other words, this individual is difficult and tends to bring out the worst in you, so a reprimand on your part will probably result in a nasty mêlée. What does the Bible instruct you to do in such cases? See this article for answers.