A brood implies a family, a domestic unit, certainly that's a civil thought. And as to vipers, well Jesus --as an environmentalist-- was not swayed by the species predjudices of His day. By calling the pharisees vipers He was no doubt commending them on their ability to use their tongues to such great effect. Their eloquence, yeah that's the ticket.
"Brood of Vipers!"... He is commending them as well spoken, family friendly group of guys. Sounds civil to me.
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The question is how should we be civil to one another and when is rebuke appropriate?
We could all join the Rodney King school of "Can't we all get along" Religious Evangelization...Gotta get alone to go along I hear...BTW what ever happened to good ole Rodney?...
I KNOW the cost of offense to Jesus...
That is a very important question for the assembled debaters at FR. When is it appropriate for a Christian to 'rebuke' a fellow believer? (A believer here being defined as one who believes in Christ for his salvation)
First, a 'rebuke' is a personal criticism of another. A rebuke is not merely a criticism of some idea, concept or construct. It is the personal nature of the criticism that raises an ideological criticism to the level of a "rebuke". So when is this elevation appropriate?
Epitimao is used approximately 30 times in the NT. In the vast majority of those instances, Christ is doing the rebuking. Interestingly, in all but three instances where other than Jesus is doing the 'rebuking, those doing the 'rebuking' are corrected by Christ for doing so inappropriately and in one of those three instances (Jude 1:9) the angel Michael is quoted as requesting the Lord to do the 'rebuking'. We are left with only two instances in the NT where believers are enjoined to 'rebuke' others: 2 Tim 4:2 and Luke 17:3.
In 2 Tim 4:2, Paul tells Timothy that he should "... be ready whether it is convenient or not, [to] reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and instruction." While Paul does not indicate directly what should occasion the 'rebuke', but he does expressly qualify that it should be done only "...with complete patience and instruction."
But Jesus is not ambiguous, in Luke 17 He tells us that we should 'rebuke' a brother when he sins: "...Watch yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to you saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him." Moreover, the contextual implication is that the 'rebuke' is authorized only when the sin is "against you".
Thus, I think the Bible teaches that while Jesus has, of course, all power and authority to 'rebuke', we have only delegated authority to 'rebuke' other believers and we should do so only "with complete patience" and, more importantly, only when the brother has sinned and arguably only when he has sinned "against [us]".
Now, the significance of this to FR is that this does NOT extend to 'rebuking' someone because he does not accede to our understanding of Biblical doctrine. Failure to agree with our ideas, concepts, constructs,etc does not have Biblical warrant for a 'rebuke'. "Rebukes" of a fellow believer are retricted to a specific sin.
I realize that many of your colleagues have so internalized the Calvinist construct that they cannot see that it is a attempt at a systematic understanding of the Bible, but it is not the Bible itself. Thus, it is never appropriate to 'rebuke' a fellow believer for failing to accede to our view of Scriptural teaching unless that disagreement has led the brother to a specific Scripturally-designated sin (i.e. we cannot define any disagreement with us as a "sin" for this purpose). As indicated, I would go further (based on Luke 17) and say that we only have delegated authority to rebuke a fellow believer when the sin is "against [us]".
But, in any event, there is no Scriptural authority to 'rebuke' fellow believers for failing to agree with us on our take on Biblical doctrine. Nothing is less atrractive in a Christian that the high-handed presumption that we have the authority to speak for the Lord and 'rebuke' others on doctrine. Perhaps in such an instance, Michael's formulation is best: "May the Lord rebuke you."
Your thoughts and comments?