Am I my brothers keeper?

So often in our culture we are told the greatest sin is to offend someone else. The greatest goal is to acquire the most "friends". Unfortunately this can be seen all too clearly in the church.

How many times do we see a destructive pattern in a friend and say nothing? How often do our friends give us a clue into some trouble in their lives and we play stupid and avoid digging into it? If we're honest most of the time we don't want to rock the boat. We don't want to take on the responsibility or be too honest and risk losing a friendship. We don't want to have to come alongside these people because there's a good chance our good life will be rocked. Or we tell ourselves we have enough of our own problems, so we become isolationists. When we boil it down we don't want to look beyond ourselves.

Take a look at this example of someone following this motto in Genesis 4:9. Then read through Ezekiel 33 and Acts 20:25-26 to see God's perspective/expectation.You should see that we are our brothers keeper and judgement isn't our purview. A wicked man can become a righteous man and a righteous man can become wicked. It's simply our role to point out the wickedness, to try to turn a sinner from their ways James 5:20. This isn't necessarily a salvation question for the one in error or the one we sees, but it is an obedience, trust and love issue. Of course we can easily pervert this mandate with self righteousness and become wicked like Job's friends when they were more concerned with protecting their own theology than with comforting Job. It's easier to discipline someone out of anger or avoid the issue altogether than to confront in a loving manner. When we confront it's not to chastise or for selfish reasons, but ultimately for the glory of Jesus and the benefit of the hearer. So obviously it's important to have our priorities right, be in prayer and approach people in humility, realizing we are all broken and fallen and probably a lot closer to making a similar decision than we care to know. It's wicked and sinful to confront from any other perspective, but yet we can't shy away from it lest we have blood on our hands.

Yes it will likely take time and effort to prepare to confront. No it won't be as easy as an angry knee jerk reaction or a lie or avoidance. None of these perspectives really require time or effort and all are completely selfish, even if we tell ourselves it's for the other person's good. Who benefits from an angry harsh response? You. You get the opportunity to tell someone off and get something off your back. Yes the other person may benefit from what you tell them, but this will be despite you. Who benefits from a lie? No one. Yes you seem to benefit and you can lie to yourself too and believe that you'd just hurt the other person, but in reality no one benefits from this not even you. The same is true of avoidance, which is willingly living in deception.

I can promise you, though, that the more you loving confront and receive a loving rebuke, the easy it will become, the quicker you'll see the need and the more patient, loving and bold you'll be with people. We don't often associate boldness and risk with love, but often times they do all go together.

The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments Volume 5 (Google Affiliate Ad)