Jesus did. So did His apostles. Want to see some examples?
How about John 4:20-22 where Jesus told a Samaritan woman that she and her people didn’t even know what they worshiped? If we’d been there, would we have been embarrassed about it? He then told her that salvation was of the Jews (not the Samaritans). Today, He likely would be branded as narrow, bigoted, intolerant and arrogant to make such claims. But He was right. Hello, He didn’t just speak the truth, He was the Truth, and if He hadn’t told her the truth, how would she ever have known?

Jesus set the Sadducees straight when they essentially mocked the resurrection. He told them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God”, Matthew 22:23-32. Wow! How would that come across today, if in open debate you told someone that they didn’t know the Bible and did not understand the power of God? But which bears more love, a correction so subtle and “gentle” that may not even be recognized for what it is, or a clear reproof that gets the point across for the sake of those interested in truth?

Have you read the 23rd chapter of Matthew? The entire thing is a public castigation of the Pharisees and their religious hypocrisy. He spelled out eight specific ways in which they were practicing error and pronounced “woes” on them for each one, calling them hypocrites, blind guides and a generation of vipers. Woooo! He openly warned His hearers not to do as the Pharisees did. And guess what? He neither printed a retraction nor offered an apology afterwards.
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His apostles followed His example of providing constructive, loving criticism when it was called for, and Pentecost was the prime example! Peter’s primary sermonic point on that day was, “You, with wicked hands, have killed the Messiah”, Acts 2:22-36. When the crowd, pierced to the heart by the truth with which he confronted them, responded by asking what they should do, he told them to repent. The very idea of repentance infers that there is wrong that needs to be changed.

Have you read what Stephen said to the Sanhedrin, just before they stoned him, Acts 7:51-53? He called them stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! As if that wasn’t enough, he then explained to them how their fathers had persecuted and killed the prophets (as Jesus had earlier pointed out, Matthew 5:10-12 & 23:29-36). The icing on the matzo, however, was when he told them that they had not kept the law!

What about Paul on Mars Hill in Athens? What of James, whose entire letter seems to blast the saints for their spurious practice of Christianity? John had the audacity to accuse Diotrephes by name of arrogant self-exaltation. Jude warned the brethren to be on guard against those he called ‘ungodly persons”, “hidden reefs”, “clouds without water”, “autumn trees without fruit”, “wild waves of the sea”, and “wandering stars”.

It all makes me wonder if these days we are not more concerned with offending people than we are with telling them the truth.
Marty Kessler