6. Sometimes, Christians correct others when they shouldn’t; other times, they let serious problems go unchecked without bringing needed correction.
Both mistakes can end up destroying others (1 Corinthians 5:1ff). For instance, if someone is hurting, oppressing, harassing, or misrepresenting another person(s), ignoring it is virtually always wrong.
7. If your brother or sister is doing something that just makes you feel uncomfortable (instead of actually hurting you or someone else), then you should think thrice about correcting them.
8. When correcting someone, go to them privately as Jesus taught us to do…“between you and him/her alone.” (Matthew 18:15)
This fulfills what Jesus taught us in Matthew 7:12. “Treat others the same way you want to be treated if you were standing in their shoes.” Going to others (beyond the person you are correcting) about the problem is only warranted if the person has rejected the correction and keeps on sinning (Matthew 18:16ff.) Or if they are sinning against others in a public way. For instance, if someone is misrepresenting another person in a public forum, then the person who is spreading the misinformation should be corrected in that public forum.
9. Ask yourself these questions before you correct another believer:
Is it my place to correct this person? Do I have a personal relationship with them? Or am I being a busybody in another person’s affairs? (1 Peter 4:15; 1 Timothy 5:13).
Have I forborne this problem for a long time? Has longsuffering and patience run its course?
Am I reacting out of pride, anger, or some other dark motive?
Have I agonized before the Lord, asking Him to remove the dark parts out of me before I talk to my sister or brother?
Has the spirit of self-righteousness and cruelty been extracted from my heart?
Have I prayed for this person, asking God to correct them Himself?
Have I gone to the cross before I pulled the trigger of correction?
And perhaps the most important of all: How would I want to be corrected if it were me who needed the correction?
If you cannot answer these questions with a “yes,” then you’re not yet qualified to correct your brother or sister.
10. Be keenly aware that you are just as fallen and deserving of judgment as the person you are correcting.
The sin of self-righteousness is the result of regarding some sins (that of others) as being more serious than other sins (those of our own). Jesus equated anger with murder and lust with adultery (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28), and James said that if you break one point of the Law, you’re guilty of breaking every Law (James 2:10). That puts all of us on the same needy level. Be careful not to fall into what Philip Yancey painfully observed: “Christians get very angry toward other Christians who sin differently than they do.”
