What does the Bible say about criticism?

"Open rebuke is better than secret love" and "faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful" (verses 5-6). A wise man welcomes open criticism and rebuke, though such rebuke may wound, yet being given by the faithfulness of a friend, it is far better than the deceitful kisses of a flattering enemy. The 14th verse may be linked with these statements. "He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse unto him." Insincerity lurks behind such loud, pharisaical protestations of friendship.

"Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."

When wrong is present, wisdom will seek to bring the help that meets the wrong. Secret love may wink at the evil, but this is not the true love of God: it is no help to the guilty party. Candid open rebuke in a spirit of kindness, not of mere censure, is both honesty and goodness. It may wound to some degree, even when done in a lowly, friendly way, but even the offender should recognize faithfulness in this, and if he rightly takes it to heart, his wounds will heal well. Moreover, it may lead him to love the wise reprover. Again, this kind of work, to be rightly done, requires true self-judgment and communion with God.

Then there is another danger, and that is of censoriousness. The habit of always seeing faults in others is exceedingly to be deprecated and watched against. "And why lookest thou on the mote that is in thy brother's eye?" What is the true root of it? Invariably, where there is the habit of beholding faults in others, there is an overlooking of our own. "Why lookest thou on the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" In that state of things we cannot help others: we must have our own evil dealt with first. "For how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, allow [me], I will cast out the mote that is in thine eye" (love would meet another's want: self is blind and busy, forgets its own faults, but can be zealous in correcting others for its own glory) — "thyself not seeing the beam that is in thine eye?" Our own fault, unjudged, always obstructs our affording real aid to another. Whereas, where we have judged ourselves, it is not only that we can see more clearly, but we can enter upon the work more humbly and lovingly. It is this that makes a man spiritual. Nothing but self-judgment can ever do it, coupled with the sense of the Lord's great grace and holiness, which is the crown of self-judgment, by the Spirit's power. But it is only the sense of the Saviour's grace and regard for His holiness, which produces self-judgment; as, on the other hand, the exercise of self-judgment increases our sense of that grace, and keeps us bright in it, instead of letting ourselves be lowered to the level of surrounding circumstances, and the state to which the allowance of flesh would ever reduce us. The Lord speaks very severely of such — "Hypocrite!" and I believe censoriousness as a rule does tend directly to hypocrisy. It leads persons to assume a spirituality which they do not possess; and is this truthful? A person who is continually commenting on others you may set down as more or less hypocritical in pretending to a holiness which is certainly beyond his measure. Such is the Lord's judgment; and you may be sure that the word which He has spoken will so decide at the last day. People forget that there is no way of pretending to spirituality more cheap and more imposing on thoughtless minds than this readiness to speak of the faults of others; but there is scarcely anything that the Lord Jesus more sternly refutes and condemns. "Hypocrite! cast out first the beam out of thine eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote that is in thy brother's eye."

Let me call attention to the language of extreme decision in speaking of these two classes. It is the habit of many an excellent Christian to deny the title of saints to exercise such a judgment; and to this they cite our Lord's prohibition in Matt. 7:1-2: "Judge not, that ye may not be judged; for with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you." Now in this application they are not wise; for the Lord here does not at all blame spiritual discernment of persons or things, which is a clear and weighty privilege of the Christian for his own guidance and the help or warning of others. And so the apostle lays it down (1 Cor. 2:15) that the spiritual (in contrast with the natural) man judges, or examines, all things, and he is judged by no one. What the Lord warned the disciples against is the bad habit of censoriousness, which so often leads to suspecting evil motives without ground and contrary to the holy instincts of love. But love would be stifled by the notion that we ought not to judge who God's children are. If we are debarred from discerning them, how can we love them? Yet the very context proves that we can and ought to judge; for the Lord supposes it not only practicable but right and necessary when He says, "Give not what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before the swine." If we are thus bound to discern the unclean, how much more is it our happy place to recognise the sheep and the lambs of God's pasture, and help them lovingly in their need according to our measure!

But we need not go beyond the verse before us to see where the truth lies in this matter. "In this are manifest the children of God and the children of the devil." The apostle regarded the difference as plain enough. He looks as usual at broad, clear, and practical proofs; he does not encumber his aim with a hypocrite here or there who might for a while be allowed to evade detection; he is earnest in drawing the heed of God's family to what is of constant moment and interest for them all. There is no real difficulty in forming a sound judgment among those whose conduct is known to us, whether these are walking righteously or those unrighteously. It is unwarrantable to suspect of a hidden evil where no evil is apparent; as it is to accredit others with an excellence which is imaginary. Righteous judgment proceeds, especially in an application so general as this, on grounds which no upright and gracious soul could question.

But you say we must "not judge," and you quote Matt. 7:1, "Judge not that ye be not judged." This is an important word of the Lord's, but it is misused to cover our cowardice and want of zeal for the glory of the Lord in not judging sin in ourselves and others. But read on and in ver. 6 you will find we are directed not to give that which is holy unto the dogs, neither to cast our pearls before the swine. Is not that an injunction to judge? How can anyone act upon the word without judging? The fact is, my dear friend, there is carnal judging which is only the indulgence of an evil propensity at the expense of our neighbours, and there is a godly spiritual judging which is a duty we owe to the Lord and to each other, and which begins with ourselves. He knows which is which, if we do not.

Speaking evil of one another (James 4:11-12)

(Vv. 11, 12). The Apostle has warned us against the pride of the flesh that seeks to exalt self. He now warns us against the effort to belittle others by speaking evil of them. To speak evil of others is an indirect attempt to exalt self. Thus evil-speaking is the outcome of self-importance. Love would not, and could not, speak evil. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Hence evil-speaking is the sure index that pride and malice, rather than love, have found place in the heart.

Moreover, the one speaking evil of his brother has forgotten the royal law, which exhorts us to love our neighbour as ourselves. Again, the law explicitly states, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.” According to the standard of the law, our brother, so far from being disparaged, is to be an object of love, and his reputation safe at the lips of his brethren. When it is otherwise, we are not even living according to the standard of the law. Clearly, then, to speak evil against our brother is to speak against the law; instead of being doers of the law, we act as if we were above the law. We judge the law rather than allowing the law to judge us. Moreover, to transgress the law is to slight the Lawgiver and to usurp His place. If our brother has done wrong, the Lawgiver is able to save or to judge according to His perfect wisdom. Who are we that we should judge one another?

Are we then to be indifferent to evil in one another? Far from it. Other Scriptures instruct us as to how to deal with evil when the sad necessity arises. This Scripture warns us against speaking evil. The one that speaks evil against his brother is not dealing with the evil and has no intention of doing so. He is simply speaking evil in order to disparage his brother. Well for us to remember, when tempted to gratify a little bit of vindictive malice by speaking evil of our brother, that we not only sink below what is proper to a Christian, but we do not even fulfil the righteousness of the law.

"Mary." You do not tell us where you live, but we fear the evil to which you call our attention is not confined to your locality, or to the special class to which you refer, namely, "unmarried females." The sin of "backbiting" prevails everywhere, and amongst all classes, to an appalling extent. It is an abominable, yea, a diabolical evil. It has been truly said, "The backbiter injures three persons, namely, himself, his hearer, and the subject of his tale." If I have any fault to find with a person, he himself ought to be the very first to hear of it. How little is this attended to! We meet a person with a smile and a shake of the hand, and no sooner have we parted company with him, than we commence to disparage him in some way or another. "I am determined," said an old saint, "never to speak of a mans virtues to his face, or of his faults behind his back." Noble determination! But alas! alas! how little is it acted upon! We generally reverse the order; we flatter people to their face, and blacken them behind their back. The Lord deliver us from this sinful and shameful practice! It is most assuredly of the devil. We want to be more faithful in speaking to people — more gracious in speaking of them. If we see anything wrong in a person, let us go directly to him and speak plainly; and if we have nothing good to say of him, let us graciously draw the curtain of silence around him. This would save a world of mischief; it would prevent untold sorrow and heart-burning. "Speak not evil one of another, brethren." This is a seasonable word, and yet, alas! how few act upon it. There seems such a want of common honesty, such an absence of even manly frankness, such meanness and cowardliness in saying behind a man's back what we would not dare to say to his face. Christians should flee from all this. It is most contemptible. No doubt "unmarried females" are more exposed to this evil, than those whose hands are well filled with domestic work. We gather this from the pungent words of the apostle, in 1 Timothy 5:13: "Withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house: and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not." It may be said that this passage applies to "the younger widows;" but then the spirit of it applies wherever the evil exists. It is a good thing to be fully employed; it saves one from a great deal of evil, and from backbiting amongst the rest; against which we solemnly warn the reader. The devil is a backbiter — the chief of backbiters, and all who indulge in the practice are doing his work. We would recommend you, dear friend, and all our readers, to adopt Solomon's remedy in all cases of backbiting. He says, "The north wind drives away rain; so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue." Never listen to a backbiter, for if you do you are a partaker of his evil. Let us remember that the way of the Lord is to speak faithfully to us, but graciously of us. Let us seek to imitate this, and not be found doing Satan's work.

Let no one deduce from what we have just referred to that any servant of Christ, however instructed or devoted, is to consider himself above all criticism, and refuse in any way to listen to remonstrance. The very opposite. The opinion of a carnal, worldly-minded believer is evidently of little or no value, but that of a godly and matured believer may well be highly esteemed. In Galatians 2:2, the Apostle Paul himself furnishes us with an example of this. He was the Apostle to the Gentiles, and received his Gospel and: instructions how to preach it by direct revelation from the Lord: yet he was not above conferring privately with those who were reputed spiritual men in Jerusalem, lest, as he says, "by any means I should run, or had run in vain."

Verse 2 emphasises the great qualification necessary in a steward. He must be faithful to the one from whom his place and authority are derived. His supreme achievement is to please his master and serve his interests, regardless of whether or not he pleases others in so doing.

In verse 3 the Apostle, who was indeed a faithful steward of God's mysteries, boldly faces his critics. "With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment" — or as it literally is, "of man's day" as noted in the margin. In 1 Corinthians 3:13 he had told us that "every man's work shall be made; manifest: for the day shall declare it." Here we have THE DAY when God's opinion shall be heard. This is MAN'S DAY when men insist upon making their opinion heard, and it is wholly unfavourable to the Apostle and all like-minded with him. The opinion of "man's day" was a very small thing with Paul. He uses emphatic terms. The New Translation renders it, "It is the very smallest matter."

Preach gently. "The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle to all, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves" (2 Tim. 2:24-25). Oh how careful is God that nothing should be in the preacher to prejudice the sinner's judgment, or harden his heart against the offer of His grace! If the servant be proud and hasty, how shall they know that the Master is meek and patient? He that will take the bird must not scare it. A forward, peevish messenger is no friend to him that sends him. Sinners are not pelted into Christ with stones of hard provoking language, but wooed into Christ by heart-melting exhortations.

The oil makes the nail drive without splitting the board. The word never enters the heart more kindly, than when it falls most gently: "Ride prosperously, because of truth and meekness" (Ps. 45:4). Be as rough to thy people's sins as thou canst, so thou be gentle to their souls. Dost thou take the rod of reproof into thine hand? Let them see that love, not wrath, gives the blow. The word preached comes, indeed, best from a warm heart.

"The words of wise men are heard in quiet" (Ecc. 9:17). Let the reproof be as sharp as thou wilt; but the spirit must be meek. Passion raiseth the blood of him that is reproved; but compassion turns his bowels. We must not denounce wrath in wrath.