I travel overseas and tend to stay in the central business district of the particular city that I am working in. At least once per trip, I will be stopped on the street by some passer-by and asked “Do you know how to get to Circular Quay?” Or “Is this the way to David Jones (a department store)?” I have pretty much decided there are one of two reasons why this happens:

• I am the physically least threatening person on the street and therefore they suspect that it is pretty safe to inquire of me where to go, or
• I look like the kind of person that knows where I am going, even in a foreign city

It is really very easy to direct folks when they have come to the understanding that they are lost and need direction or guidance, but what about people who are clearly going the wrong way and haven’t yet realized it? Would it be as easy to stop them and turn them the right way?

I have on a couple of occasions felt moved to directly correct a fellow believer in Christ seeing that their actions don’t line up with what they say they believe, i.e. they are going the wrong way. On those occasions, I have been nervous about the situation because I am not a big person for confrontation and, yet believed that it was for the benefit of the person that I speak up. It is one of the things that we within the body are called to do for one another.

In these occasions I have used 2 Timothy 3:16-17 as a guide. In this passage, God tells us through Paul that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” (ESV)

A couple of important points:

• The emphasis is on God’s Word and not my opinion. Taking the person to the Word and showing their error eliminates me from the conversation and makes the matter one of spiritual obedience. Mind you, it also requires me to be sure of what the whole council of Scripture says on the matter, before I approach them. This will also often bring a more funda
• The phrase “man of God” makes this something that can only happen between believers. I can’t tell you the number of times I have gotten frustrated by the actions of a person and wanted to go and confront them and then realized that because they were not a believer that the over-arching issue was one of salvation and their sin nature.

The other issue that I have found is key in such instances is that you have a relationship with that person first, so that your words come out as caring concern for the person. A few years back, I had a situation where I needed to approach a friend of mine about such an issue and our friendship has gotten stronger because I was willing to stop, express concern and call him to the biblical standard that I knew he knew but was not keeping.