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 Christian websites that use sarcasm, mockery and arrogance in their teaching.
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.
We may 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 think our parents don't deserve honor even though God commands it. We can think we know the answers to our friend's problems even when we don't. We can think we have discernment when we simply overestimate our spiritual wisdom.
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.
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copyright, Gail Burton Purath, 2015, BiteSizeBibleStudy.com, updated in 2026
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