Handling Confrontation With Grace

Before doing this study, please read the 1-minute introduction: HOW We Do Things is Important. It explains that our motives and methods matter when we're talking about sin or confronting a fellow believer. 

1. What about sarcasm, mockery and arrogance used by some Christian teachers?

If they don't have the HOW right, I'm suspect of anything they have to say, especially if they are "exposing the errors" of other Christian teachers or speakers. 

If we have to correct a fellow believer, but we must combine the salt of the Gospel with grace, not sarcasm, mockery, self-righteousness, rudeness, or bluntness: 

Colossians 4:6: Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. 

Ephesians 4:29: Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

See Do You Know the Mom's Version of Ephesians 4:29? 

2 Timothy 2:24-26: The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

2. Self-righteousness is perhaps the biggest problem:

We can treat our parents, elders, and those in authority without respect.

See A Man Who Amazed Jesus.  

We can think we know the answers to our friend's problems even when we don't.

See Job's Judgmental Friends. 

We can think we have discernment when we simply overestimate our spiritual wisdom.

See "Thank You that I'm Not Like Other People."  

We need to remember this parable: 
Luke 18:9-14: To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’14 I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 

See I’m Pressing On, But I’m Not There Yet.

Free Subscription to Bite Size Bible Study. Have a short Bible study delivered to your email 2-3 times a month.

10 Reasons You'll Love the book Wisdom for Life. A collection of 100 one-minute devotions from Psalms and Proverbs and a great gift for people who love God's Word.

Full description of the book Lies in Disguise. A much needed book to uncover half-truths that misuse Scripture and weaken Christian faith. 

copyright, Gail Burton Purath, 2015, BiteSizeBibleStudy.com, updated in 2026

 

 

 

Our Jealous God Bible Study

Before doing this short Bible study, please read the one-minute introduction Our Jealous God. 

 

It explains that the type of Jealousy God has for us is holy, righteous, and a blessing,

“Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” Deuteronomy 4:23-24:

A similar passage is found several chapters later. God obviously wanted to make this clear:  

Deuteronomy 6:14-19: Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; 15 for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. 16 Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah. 17 Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. 18 Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors, 19 thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said.” 

See Righteous Jealousy. 

Pagan worship was a predominant part of Israel's history. 

Read Psalm 106 that outlines Israel's repeated rebellion against God. Notice verses 19, 28, and 34-39.  

Paganism damages our hearts and souls, and faith in God builds, inspires, and strengthens our souls. God is jealous because He loves and cares for us.

These passages are New Testament confirmations of the passages in Deuteronomy.

What kind of gods do modern Christians sometimes honor? Some are pagan and some are not. See Priorities and Our Jealous God.

1 Corinthians 10:18-22: Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? 19 Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. 22 Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he? 

The Apostle Paul showed a similar jealousy for those he'd discipled: 

2 Corinthians 11:1-3: I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! 2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 

2 Corinthians 6:15-17: What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”17 Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” 

 

copyright, Gail Burton Purath, 2015, BiteSizeBibleStudy.com, updated in 2026

 

 

What the Bible Teaches About Certain Sexual Sins

Before doing this study, I encourage you to read Do You Think You Can Pick Which Bible Verses to Believe? as in introduction.

Dear Christians, now more than ever before, we must know what the Bible teaches. And we must realize it will never be popular.

The lines are drawn, and Jesus drew them.

We have a choice: We can study God's truth and speak up for it in love, or we can become people of whom Christ is ashamed (Joshua 24:14-15; Luke 9:26). 

1. Don't be Ashamed.
We must never be ashamed of Bible commands, no matter how unpopular they become in our culture. Remember these words:

Luke 9:26: Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.  

2.  Know what the Bible says.

There are numerous passages addressing the sin of homosexuality. It's critical that we know what the Bible says! (2 Timothy 2:15)

A. God's design for sexuality is clearly established in the first book of the Bible and restated in the New Testament:*
Mark 10:6-9: “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

B. Christ confirmed God's design:
The marriage of one man and one woman is confirmed by Christ in Matthew 19:1-8 and the New Testament instructions for pastors and elders also confirm this design (1 Timothy 3).

C. The passages below confirm God's consistent, unchanging view of homosexuality as a sin.

Romans 1:24-32: Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. 

Jude 1:7: In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. 

1 Corinthians 6:9-11: Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

The real hate crime is being silent about God's commands. We should be concerned for the spiritual destiny of those who reject God's commands and pray for their souls. Will you take a few moments right now to pray for homosexuals, especially those you know personally?

copyright 2015, Gail Burton Purath, BiteSizeBibleStudy.com, edited and updated in 2026