This week, a certain young person confronted an older person regarding a moral issue.  The older person who was confronted got angry, naturally.  The Confronted felt aggrieved and felt insulted by the Young Confrontor’s audacity to express an opinion on such a sensitive “adult” issue.

The Confronted had a right to feel aggrieved and insulted.  Young people shouldn’t be allowed to tell older people off even if they feel that the older people are wrong.  Young people ought to wait for their opinion to be asked.

On my part, I thought that maybe the Young Confrontor might have been motivated by a desire for attention.  I thought that the Young Confrontor felt she was coming of age and that she needed to be heard. I also thought that maybe the Young Confrontor, being young, had engaged in “adult-bashing” in an attempt to create a separate identity. I had no idea if she was motivated by anger or malice or just plain youthful thoughtlessness. No matter what her motivations were, her words hurt another.

On further reflection, however, I realize that the Young Confrontor was simply doing as she has been told.  She was told to follow Matthew 18:15-17: “if thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between him and thee…”

The Young Confrontor probably felt aggrieved by some deed of the Confronted and that she decided to email the Confronted to tell the Confronted exactly what she felt.  She told the truth about what she thought and felt.  Under different circumstances and viewed in another light, it took courage for the Young Confrontor to do what she did.  She felt strongly about an issue, she didn’t backbite the party whom she thought offended her, instead, she honestly told her what she felt.  The Young Confrontor had the courage to act on her convictions.

For her honesty and candor, she should be lauded. John the Baptist confronted King Herod:  “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”  Jesus Christ confronted the Pharisees:  Ye hypocrites!”  Stephen’s words “cut them to the heart.”

B U T……

In the end, I talked with the Young Confrontor.  I told her that it’s not wrong to tell people the truth about what she felt, especially if to her it is a question of right and wrong and she felt personally aggrieved.  But she has to be careful how she says things.  We are instructed, after all, to “speak the truth in love.”

We must remember, when we feel compelled to confront another person:

1. First, pray really long and hard for God to reveal to you what motivations you may have in desiring to confront another.  Remember:”the wrath of men worketh not the righteousness of God”.  Ask God to try you and correct your wrong motivations;
2. Second, ask God to search you and prove you so that your motivations are clear and clean before God. Remember: “if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me”;
3. Third, ask God for the most opportune time and place to confront the person, ask God to give you the words; ask God to work on the person’s heart even before you speak to him so that the Holy Spirit can reveal the truth of the Scripture on the matter to you and to the person you will confront;
4. Fourth, be courteous and polite when you do confront another person. Choose your words well. If you must disagree, do not be disagreeable.  Speak the truth in love.
5. Fifth, ask God for boldness and wisdom. Choose your tone well. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt.
6. Sixth, never water-down the truth of God’s Word. Stand firm, hold forth the word of life.
7. Seventh, be prepared for the reaction.  The person you confront may get angry or, the person may feel closer to you and thank you that you cared enough to confront him honestly.
8. Eighth, learn to live with the consequences of your actions.  You made your bed, now you have to lie in it.  Your words may hurt another. You may have shattered a relationship beyond repair. Your only comfort is that you have done what is right and pleasing before the Lord because you followed the first seven steps.
9. Ninth, ask God that He may be honored and glorified.  Give God the glory and the praise for whatever happens. Entrust the repair of the relationship to God.
10. Tenth, move on.  Forgive the person for his anger.  Forgive the person for whatever hurt he or she caused you in the first place and ask to be forgiven for whatever hurt your confrontation has caused.

As for me, I feel responsible.  I taught the Young Confrontor to speak the truth.  I helped shape the Young Confrontor’s sense of right and wrong because I taught her from the Scriptures.  By teaching her the Scriptures, I had hoped to give her a tool she can use in her life.  I failed to see that young hearts are ingenious: they can take the simplest tools and use them as weapons.

I do not regret having equipped the Young Confrontor with a sense of right and wrong. I see now, though, that it is not enough to teach how to tell right from wrong.  One must also pray that the knowledge of right and wrong also blossom in wisdom to apply the knowledge circumspectly.  I must be vigilant to also train her how to use the tool as a tool and not as a weapon.

The TRUTH is never without “RUTH.”  “Ruth” is compassion for the misery of another and sorrow for one’s own faults.  Be careful how you use the truth because the truth is not a thing, it is a Person.  Jesus said, I am the truth.

We must be prepared to handle the truth because in speaking the truth, we make ourselves subject to the work of the truth. If in speaking the truth we hope merely to correct others, watch out, the Truth corrects all, ourselves above all.

We must worship God in Spirit and in truth.  We must build each other upon our most holy faith.  We must edify one another.  We must exhort one another. We are never given the license to tear each other apart using the truth.