5 Better is open rebuke than hidden love. 6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy. ~ Proverbs 27:5-6
Open rebuke is better than hidden love. If you are receiving a profuse (An abundant, Excessive, Overflowing). Extravagant amount beyond necessity number of kisses, they just might be from an enemy and not a friend. Evaluate your situation. The truth never lies. Listen, real love involves honest and constructive criticism rather than deceitful kindness.
Please understand that true love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth NIV (1 Corinthians 13:6). Look, a Christian’s main objective is all about your eternal soul. Your soul will spend eternity in one place or the other forever. If you break God’s commandments because a man, or a woman told you it is okay to do so… that will not stand up in God’s court as a valid excuse.
That is why I always, always encourage people to read the Bible for yourselves. It is imperative. It is crucial. It is essential. It is vital. It is critical. It is most important. That you understand for yourself: what you must answer to God for. Realize this: you will answer to God, your own self, for your own actions, and nobody else will give an account for you or stand in your place.
You must be like the Bereans who searched the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul was teaching was true → In other words, they searched to make sure that Paul was not misinterpreting the Scriptures but rather, that he was indeed preaching truth (Acts 17:11) … They didn’t just take his word. They confirmed his words. We cannot use the excuse that we didn’t know, or that we didn’t realize.
We have Bibles upon Bibles in every English translation that we can imagine. There is Old English. New English. Contemporary English. Paraphrase translation. Dynamic Equivalence. Formal Equivalence. We have what they call Hybrid Translations. We even have Interlinear Bibles.
What I’m saying is, we have… NO excuse. We, who live in the West, the so-called Free World, have no excuse, and of all people, we will probably be held to a higher standard than most because of it. To whom much is given, much is required, and we have been given much.
Peace. Love. Go Forth and Accept Rebuke.