Irresistible FaithSample

While none of us want to run around telling other people what’s wrong with them, it is a mistake to think that never offering critique—especially a humble one—is the most loving way to be a friend. In fact, sometimes love requires that we stand up and in humble boldness speak hard words to those whom we love. I believe this is what David and Paul both meant—at least in part—when they said that believers should be angry but sin not (Ps. 4:4; Eph. 4:26).

Anger toward sin in particular, though a negative emotion, should be motivated by positive love for those caught in it—similar to the reason a surgeon uses a scalpel on a patient with cancer. The surgeon will cut into the patient not because she is against the patient, but because she is for him. Passionate for his restoration to health and longevity, she is against—even angry toward—the cancer that could cut his life short. 

In a similar way, there is an appropriate and necessary anger that must be nurtured in our hearts toward the sin in others and in ourselves. As we channel our anger in this way—as we correct and rebuke one another not as with a sword to destroy, but as with a scalpel to heal—we become channels of God’s love toward one another. Love and anger go together. Both are necessary for the redemptive exchange that must take place between flawed sinners when one or both are “caught” in transgression (Gal. 6:1–2). . . .

I suppose what I’m trying to say here is that the “faithful wounds” God sometimes calls us to inflict on one another—always as with a scalpel and never as with a sword—can sometimes create further relational strain. And yet, because God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours, we must remain confident that God is at work. We also must remember that it is an unspeakable privilege to participate with God in one another’s redemption stories, for “whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20).