Honoring a Sibling

In my early teens, my younger sister and I had acoustic guitars. But I wanted an electric lead guitar. So, one day, I stole my sister’s guitar, took it to a guitar store, and traded our acoustic guitars for an electric guitar. In my stupidity, I thought no one would notice. I escaped my parents’ wrath for a few weeks; my sister was so upset that she lost her guitar. Secrets like that don’t last long—a friend, a Youth for Christ leader, saw me at the guitar store and knew I was responsible for my sister’s guitar disappearing. Instead of telling my parents, he took me for a meal and, at the end, said to me, “Andrew, I know what you did. Come with me. I told the guitar store to set aside both acoustic guitars and that you’d return with the electric guitar to replace them.” I humbly returned to the store with my electric guitar and got our acoustic guitars back.

That friend, Sam, was so gentle with me. Instead of reporting me to my parents (which would have gotten me several spankings) or shaming me, he did everything so quietly, just between us. As a result, I never again stole anything.

The Lord Jesus said to his disciples,

“Pay attention: If your sibling sins against you, honor him/her (επιτιμάω, epitimao). If s/he repents, forgive. Even if seven times a day s/he sins, returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him/her.” (Luke 17:3–4)

Many translations translate the verb epitimao as “rebuke.” Most likely, however, it referred to honoring the sibling by giving him or her a chance to repent (the verb timao means “honor” as in Timothy’s name, meaning “honor [timao] to God [theos]). When s/he received that chance from the disciples—up to seven times a day—s/he would be truly surprised, and so would the disciples.

It seems unfair to us that someone could repeatedly sin against the disciples, up to seven times each day, and the disciples had to forgive them. But that reflected God’s heart.

The same is true of us—we must be quick to honor a sinning sibling, biological or Christian, by telling the truth but forgiving the person when s/he is repentant and asks for forgiveness. We can’t ignore someone’s sins; that’s not honoring. Telling the truth to the sibling is honoring. But when that person is repentant, we must be quick to forgive, not hold their sins against them.