Complaining vs. Correcting 3.20.2025

    There is difference between merely complaining and providing correction. The former is often a matter of self-aggrandizement or grandstanding. The latter, compassionate guidance. Being called by Christ and following Him means trying to adhere to a different, higher standard. Because each of us are culturally, socially, and locally conditioned that “high” standard will be slightly different for each one of us. As Christians we have determined that the Scripture is our standard of believing, and when it is possible to know it—the lifestyle of Jesus provides our standard of doing. 

    Hence the title of this week’s essay and the pressing need to try and understand Jesus’ approach to “right living.” The issue is fairly stark. When we look at the Gospels, Jesus spent a great deal of time correcting people of all sorts. His disciples, women visited by wells, Demonized men, women, and children, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians—even the occasional Roman. Despite all this interaction Jesus was not a complainer. He did not carp or rail when confronted with hypocritical or sinful behavior. In fact, He seemed to be the most compassionate with those who were the least “righteous.” And we find this difficult. Very difficult. Nearly impossible. 

    So, the question before us, particularly in our exegesis and through our preaching is “How can I correct like Jesus without falling into the trap of becoming a complainer?” It won’t be easy. In the richest nation in human history, with more perks and fewer irks, Americans in general and the American Church in particular has made much of our discourse a constant whine—a parade of perennial complaint which falls on increasingly inattentive ears. The problem with complainers is that they become boring and those who are confronted by them apathetic. 

    Correction should be a learning experience. That means that for those who preach and teach our correcting should be a teaching experience. Far too often it is not. We meanderingly complain without the slightest concrete notion of any effective change that we might suggest. People know we are upset, unsettled, or even angry—often angry—but even if they wanted to accept guidance from God’s Word and His Church they can’t, because we don’t offer it. 

Consider the following passage. It contains both complaint—by Jesus’ enemies, and correction by Jesus Himself. 

“Matthew 12:1   At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. Matthew 12:2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” Matthew 12:3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: Matthew 12:4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Matthew 12:5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? Matthew 12:6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. Matthew 12:7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. Matthew 12:8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”” (Matthew 12:1-8 ESV)

 This passage is well known and emblematic of the difference between Jesus and His opponents. Notice the following: 

▪ The complaints of the Pharisees were personal as much as they were behavioral or Biblical. 

▪ The response of Jesus focused upon Biblical precedent, expecting His audience to be knowledgeable about His response. 

▪ The Pharisees were interested primarily in preventing an action, Jesus in promoting an attitude. 

▪ In this instance Jesus goes beyond the complaint to offer a transformative theological and ethical corrective. 

    From this passage we can draw some reliable extensible conclusions about how we should balance the need to correct with the temptation to complain. It begins with Scripture and how we use it. The Pharisees primarily viewed scripture as a stop sign. Clearly, that could not have been the content of their whole theology, but in practice it appeared that way because just about everyone, at one time or another would offend them. Even Jesus. For Jesus the primary use of Scripture was to positively transform a person’s belief system. He knew that thinking right led to doing right and that the opposite could not be guaranteed. The outcome of the Pharisaic approach to Scripture was not in and of itself legalistic, but it tended that way due to human nature. It is easier for us to blame, shame, and complain than to encourage, recalibrate, and help. 

    Next, we need to pay close attention to how Jesus corrects. He generally does so without deepening the conflict. He didn’t fight even when He was right, even when He could. WHY? Because He didn’t need to, and conflict did not further His aims. A culture of complaint tends towards a culture of constant conflict. The Judaisms of the Second Temple period are a case study of how constant complaint between those who basically believed the same things devolved into persistent bickering. This bickering was so pronounced that at least one group, the Essenes, withdrew from society and transformed their complaints into pleas for God to destroy their enemies. Instead, we hear Jesus whose approach was to correct whilst decompressing, to teach without His lessons becoming childish, ineffective moralizing. 

    A final observation. Jesus was playing a long game. The Pharisees, scribes, legal-theorists, aristocrats, and busybodies would not leave Him alone, yet His tone rarely changed. There were times that He would even congratulate His questioners when they got this or that point right. For Jesus being right was not the point. He was not trying to “score.” He was not trying to win some intellectual battle with His peers. He was trying to transform the world. 

    He was able to bring transformative change, not by “being right” but by being God. Not by winning, but by losing. Not by victory, but through submission. As we move through this long and reflective time leading to Holy Week, we need to be ever mindful of the ultimate outcome. Regardless of what went on in that grain field, there was going to be a cross. Answering every critic, responding to every complaint, validating every whine may have made His adversaries feel good, but Jesus was not in the “feel-good” business.  He was in the redemption business which is the longest game of all.