Greetings and Salutations. This is Life and Books and Everything.

I'm Kevin DeYoung. Good to have you with us. As I mentioned before, this aspect of LBE, where I read these articles, we're hoping to move in the near future to a separate podcast, a different stream, just so it's not confusing what we're doing here on LBE, which is really to do the long-form interviews. But this tends to get a lot of

good feedback that this isn't helpful. So we'll continue with this reading these articles. But you can

look for that in the weeks or maybe the next couple of months, probably take a short break

over the summer on both interviews and articles.

But good to have you with us today. I don't know why I'm saying us. It's just me here.

World Opinions, the article today, prophetic or merely performative. It's important to follow the Bible's pattern for rebuke and critique.

The Bible is not opposed to critiquing Christians.

There is hardly a book in the Bible that doesn't involve some form of correction,

warning, or rebuke for God's often wayward people.

In fact, in many texts, Christians are exhorted to confront our brothers when sinned against,

Matthew 1815, to gently restore those caught in transgression, Galatians 6-1, and to warn those who

have wandered from the truth, James 519. Indeed, the scriptures were given to us for reproof and for

correction. There was no problem, when done wisely, humbly, and fairly,

with Christians pointing out problems with the Christian Church, or for that matter,

when Christians address publicly what others have spoken, written, or done publicly.

The danger is when Christians, as a full-time vocation or as an online hobby,

become professional critics of the church. Good

parents discipline their children at the right time and in the right way. Bad parents

exasperate their children with constant harping and provocation. But what about the prophets

you might counter? Wasn't their full-time calling, basically to show God's people their sins?

Of course, religious people and religious institutions don't like the prophetic voices in their

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