Counselling One Another With The Gospel

Jane Eyre is a classic book about a poor orphan who is taken in by her aunt (Mrs. Reed). Mrs. Reed, with the help of her other children, abuses Jane in the name of discipline. She sees Jane as a rebellious, suspicious, sullen girl who needs her bad propensities shaken from her.

In one of these acts of discipline, she locks Jane in the red-room, ignoring her pleas for help. Jane later muses on that day and how it remained with her:

“No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red-room: it only gave my nerves a shock, of which I feel the reverberation to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering. But I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities.”

This quote pierced me and led me to consider my own actions. Though I haven’t done anything physically that might rend a person’s heart-strings, what if I’ve spoken words that have? Do I ever give heart-string rending counsel? Do I ever deeply hurt people by my discipleship in an attempt to uproot their bad propensities?

And if so, how do I change that?

Read the rest of this article on Gospel-Centered Discipleship.