A Soft Answer - Pt 6

Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning. (Proverbs 9:7-9 ESV).

To finish our series in developing a “soft answer” we see Charlie Brown at camp. Upon arriving, he is soon tormented by a trio of bullies. Camp seems to be divided into groups of four. The bullies' full-fledged fourth member is a prickly orange cat with a spiky collar that quickly puts Snoopy in his place. The boys (Charlie Brown, Linus, Franklin, and Schroeder) and the girls (Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Lucy, and Sally) claim separate cabins. The girls decide to do things democratically, using secret ballots to vote on any major decision they have to make. To break a four-way tie, Peppermint Patty votes herself tent leader. Camp unfolds without even a glimpse of adult supervision. The troublemaking bullies cheat in a potato sack race and deflate the competition's rafts to ensure they are, as they assert, Number One. The sixth principle emerges for our soft answer: we should correct others carefully. Our reading shows the wisdom of this method for “truth telling.” The reality is that you have absolutely no control over how the other person acts in a conflict. You can’t make the other person love or force the other person to be open to correction. You can’t coerce a person into admitting their faults or coax a person to keep their anger in check. All you can control is your response. Again we must note when we correct people we need to carefully balance grace giving with truth telling. Grace giving is extending compassion and mercy to people when we confront them. Grace giving comes when we’re willing to forgive, when we avoid name calling and sarcasm. Grace giving means giving the other person the benefit of the doubt rather than assuming that they have impure motives. Some people are strong in truth telling but weak in grace giving. These are people who tell it like it is, but they do it with the subtlety of a brick going through a window. Other people are strong in grace giving but weak in truth telling. These are people who hate conflict and avoid it at all costs. They’d rather pretend that everything is fine, to keep overlooking obvious sins that need to be confronted. But these are people who often explode when the pressure keeps building. Or they simply avoid the relationship entirely, divorcing the spouse, refusing to return a friend’s phone calls, or looking for another church rather than resolving the issue. Clearly we need to balance grace giving and truth telling when we confront people. To the extent that we keep these two aspects of confrontation in balance, to that extent we’ll be like Jesus himself when we confront a person.