20090905

rebuke him, forgive him

Luke 17

v3 & 4

Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.

The point of this verse is forgiveness. If anybody sins against us, (actually, whether they repent or not), we should forgive them. It doesn't say "If they don't repent, don't forgive them."

Colossians 3:13
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also [do] ye.

We should be willing to forgive again and again.

Matthew 18:21 & 22
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

But part of Luke 17:3 did say, ...If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him... Don't get me wrong, we shouldn't have a lifestyle of rebuking people. We shouldn't rebuke people all the time, or every time we think they do something wrong. But there is a place for rebuke.

For example, if you purchase a product from a business, and the product turns out to have a problem with it, it's not only acceptable practice for you to tell the business about it (as long as you do it in the right manner,) but a good business would want you to tell them. And when you're taking care of children, and trying to help them do what's right, it can be good and important to talk to them about problems with their behavior (again, if you do it the right way).

Just as it's not always necessarily right to criticize somebody for something, it's not always necessarily wrong either.

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