This historic Biblical teaching goes against modern viewpoints. I’ll first quote the verses that teach it.
Proverbs 9:7 “He who corrects a scoffer gets shame for himself,
And he who rebukes a wicked man only harms himself.
8 Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you;
Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you.
Proverbs 16:32 Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.
Proverbs 19:11 Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.
Ecclesiastes 7:9 Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
James 1:19 So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath;
The shocking consistency of this teaching is that when a person is corrected, that person can choose to either be angry and offended, or thankful and loving. The emotional response can widely vary, and is 100% the responsibility and the choice of the one experiencing the emotion, or rather, it reflects whether the listener is foolish, or wise.
When corrected, Fools take offense and get angry. The wise are thankful and loving.
This is exactly the opposite of the so called wisdom of our modern era, which tell us that we should not offend others. And that the one who is offended somehow has the upper hand by somehow being the more righteous one.
Nope. That’s inverted in two ways. First, we are supposed to preach the truth, which involves correcting others, and will occasionally offend people, because you can’t always choose your audience. Second, those who are offended, are themselves choosing to be offended, (another person did not offend them, they simply chose to be offended) and the Bible says they are fools, wicked, scoffers, rejecters of knowledge.
Why do the wise love correction, and why do fools hate it?
The wise appreciate the truth, as they seek it out. They know it’s difficult to find. The wise know that the way to not be wrong is to turn away from being wrong, and to adopt the view of being right. This requires learning, instruction, correction, coaching, feedback, mentoring, reading and being humble enough to change one’s viewpoint, and being willing to listen. In fact, wise people are willing to pay good money to be corrected, and buy books, or pay for consulting, they love it that much!
In contrast, fools hate learning, they hate truth, they are prideful, and embarrassed over their constant foolishness that follows them everywhere. Their values are totally inverted. They value their pride more than the truth. They mock, scorn, ridicule, slander and lie, in a foolish attempt to regain reputation, as they destroy their own reputation! How foolish!
This is why I block scoffers and mockers out of our forum. They disqualify themselves from instruction. And I’m literally instructed to not try to instruct them. It would be foolish of me to try to instruct fools. It’s a waste of time, they never learn, they don’t want to learn, they hate learning. Arguing with a fool for too long is therefore foolish itself, and not only makes you look foolish, because the fool calls you a fool, but you are being foolish.
I also block slanderers out of our forum, an even worse and even more overly evil behavior, such obvious liars. This is lose-lose dangerous behavior, their slander, it hurts both their own reputation and that of the one they lie about. They are so foolish, they think they can lie inventively and outrageously, and not be caught, because they are so familiar with lies, it’s all they can do. In my experience, when I explain to them that they slandered, they almost always both deny it and then slander a second and third time, often in one sentence, it’s rather shocking. It appears demonic, as Satan is the father of lies. But all this does is reconfirm that I made the correct decision to block them.
I know we all have to deal with difficult people at times in our lives. Sometimes it’s best to just keep our distance.
So, when you want to share helpful information with others, the primary thing is to try to quickly see if they want to learn more. If so, do so. If not, move along to someone else.