If you are correcting someone and you are speaking the truth, this is defined in the bible as rebuking or exhortation. However, if you are speaking in error (your understanding is flawed), this same action is defined as reviling.
Rebuke definition: to express sharp disapproval or criticism of someone because of their behavior or actions.
Reviling definition: to criticize in an angrily, insulting manner, to criticize someone strongly.
Exhortation definition: an address or communication emphatically urging someone to do something. To incite by argument or advice, to urge strongly, to give warnings or advice, make urgent appeals.
It is important that we understand the bible and what exactly it is saying without taking the pastor’s word for it. Their concern may be divided between running a successful church more than your salvation.
If we think we are exhorting someone, but our understanding of the word of God is inaccurate, we are actually reviling them. A reviler criticizes someone for following the truth, due to their own misunderstanding of the word of God.
Matthew 7:3-5 – Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
Luke 6:39-42 – He also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. 41 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
Revilers Cannot Enter Heaven
And as we can see in the next scriptures, revilers cannot enter the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 6:10 – nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
It is important to pay attention to what exactly we are teaching. Is it in line with the Bible through the teachings of Jesus?
1 Timothy 4:16 – Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
In the book of Titus, Paul is mandating those who know the truth, to stop or silence the false teachers by rebuking them sharply. This is so that they will repent and correct the error of their ways. Otherwise, they would be left to God’s punishment and vengeance.
Titus 1:10-16 – For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. 11 They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain. 12 One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.” 13 This saying is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith 14 and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth.
15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. 16 They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.
People may reject your rebuke/exhortation and continue their lives with their flawed understanding of Jesus’ teachings. However, there is only an expectation of judgment for them.
Hebrews 10:26-31 – If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Are You Speaking In Line With Jesus?
There is a fine line between exhorting, rebuking and reviling. The biblical difference is determining whether what you are saying is in line with the bible through Jesus’ teachings. Not whether it is in line with what you were taught to believe by others such as your denomination, pastors, parents, mentors, etc.
By following denominational teachings only, we may quite possibly revile people. In turn, this would prohibit our own entry into the kingdom of heaven.
Hebrews 6:4-8 – It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
We must remain repentant in our faith until the end. Once we feel sure that we know the truth, we have become unrepentant, unteachable and unwilling to change. We are no longer moldable by God at this point. We have become close minded and no longer open to changing or hearing the truth. Finally, we will have become useless to the kingdom of God. Nothing does this better than denominational thinking.
Matthew 5:13 – You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
Mark 9:50 – Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.
Luke 14:34-35 – Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
Once we lose our repentance, it is impossible to get it back. So we must protect our repentance; our willingness to hear, admit our faults and change. We must not act like ‘know it alls’ (unrepentant).
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