To Apologize or Not To Apologize...

I have been doing a lot of thinking about apologies. I was challenged by someone that I have been mentoring online who said that the Bible does not tell us to apologize. I guffawed at the mere suggestion of such lunacy and went to my concordance to quickly locate the references that require us to apologize. My guffaw soon stuck in my throat. Did you know that not once has the Bible called us to apologize? We are called to forgive, we are called to confess, we are called to repent, we are called to be reconciled, but never once is the word "apology" used.

I was floored! All my life I have been taught of the value of the apology. I encourage my kids to always find ways to apologize when they hurt one another. Yet this well-established virtue is never spoken of in the Bible.

Now there are a few examples of apologies made by the characters of the Bible (Genesis 33:8, 26; 50:16; Exodus 10:17; 1Samuel 15:25; 24:17; 25:28; 26:21; Acts 16:39; 2Corinthians 12:13). Most of the examples are less than classic apologies, lacking in the appropriate "I am sorry, I was wrong." The ones that do, come from people not usually held up as examples to follow (Pharaoh, King Saul, and Philippi’s civic leadership) and their motivation to apologize is somewhat suspect.

So where did this compulsion to say "I am sorry" come from? It is all tied up in the command Jesus gives us to love one another. There are few things as destructive to our love as unresolved conflict and hurts. It is the unaddressed wrongs in our relationships that often become the bricks that make up the walls that there are between us. More than likely the motivation for us not to apologize is pride or fear rather than love.

So let's deal with that stuff already! Put aside the pride and fear. Perfect love banishes fear (1John 4:18). If we are motivated by the love of God we don’t have to fear that our apology will create bigger problems. We don’t have to fear that we will get taken advantage of because just like Jesus, we will seek to serve rather than to be served (Mark 10:45).

The Bible may not use the words we use, but there is no doubt that we are called by God to apologize. So everybody! Say it with me: “I am sorry. I was wrong.”