The Bad Guy Is Sometimes Actually the Good Guy
by Terry Wane Benton
A child left to himself brings his mother to shame. The unappreciated role is the one spoken of in disrespectful tones (the mother) because she dared to love enough to do the unappreciated tasks of correction and discipline. She is treated as the bad guy, but she is actually the good guy!
The preacher or elder who prevents the unchallenged error from spreading by confronting the one spreading error is often treated as the unloving bad guy, when they were actually the good guys. It is easy to see a mother in the act of discipline and label it “unloving” and bullying, but the truth is that she should be honored for doing the loving thing.
Sometimes the loving thing is not the easy thing. “Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid” (Proverbs 12:1).
