In my previous blog I wrote about Jesus making judgments. Today I’m going to address whether we are to follow Christ’s example regarding judging others.
Are we to judge?
Is it Biblical for us to judge? Many people who have never
opened a Bible know that Jesus said, “Judge not.” Yet, as my Pastor has
repeatedly taught, “context is everything.” Looking at Matthew 7 Jesus’
teaching shows us that if we judge, we’ll be judged by the same standard, so
the first step we must take before judging anyone is to look in the mirror. We
must analyze our own lives, ask the Lord to show us if we do the same thing,
and listen for the Holy Spirit’s conviction. If we do the same thing, we must
“take the log out” of our own eye – repent. After we’ve made things right
between us and God, then we can “see clearly to remove the speck” from someone
else’s eye, which certainly implies judging. Removing a speck is a helpful
thing but one must examine the
motivation as to why one wants to do that.
No love in the
motivation
As Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem those in a Samaritan
village did not welcome him (Luke 9:51-56) and this raised the judgmental ire
of James and John. Motivated by a
“holier than thou” revenge, they asked Jesus if they should call down fire
from heaven to destroy the Samaritans, but Jesus rebuked them. He didn’t come
to destroy but to save. James and John loved Jesus and they made a judgment
that those who didn’t deserved death. They were zealous for him, but it was
“zeal without knowledge.” They didn’t understand His mission. Their judgment
was driven by the wrong motive and
any one of us can fall prey to loveless motivation.
Did the early disciples
judge?
In Acts 5:1-11 Peter told Ananias that he had lied to the
Holy Spirit and then he accused Sapphira of testing the Spirit of the Lord. In
Galatians 2:11-13 Paul rebukes Peter for hypocrisy regarding separating himself
from eating with the Gentiles when certain Jews were around. In 1 Corinthians 5
Paul called out the church for not punishing a man guilty of immorality. So
clearly those in the early church did judge. Let’s
examine the motivation in each of these cases?
In Acts 5, Peter confronts the deceit of Ananias and
Sapphira. They had sold a piece of property and kept back a portion of the sale
for their own use but proceeded to pretend to give all of it to the church.
Their sin was lying to the Holy Spirit (who lives within each Christian) and
testing the Spirit of the Lord to see just what they could get away with. When
faced with what they had done they each fell down dead. The result was the fear
of God fell upon the church. Peter’s motivation for confronting them was most
certainly to root out deception in the Church. Although salvation is based on
grace, not works, God doesn’t turn a blind eye to sin within the church. Perhaps Peter’s motivation was to maintain
the purity of the church.
In Galatians 2:11-14 it is Peter who is on the receiving
end of some well-deserved judgment. In the beginning of the church there were
many problems in trying to balance the grace we receive by faith with obedience
to the Old Testament Laws. Peter had been given revelation directly from God
that Gentiles can be converted (Acts 10). He went into the house of the
Gentiles and ate with them. He was criticized for this by Jewish Believers but
explained how God showed them the Gentiles were worthy of salvation by pouring
out the Holy Spirit on them. So
initially, Peter got the message that eating with Gentiles isn’t a problem.
However, just like anyone of us can forget lessons God has taught us, Peter
gave way to peer pressure and separated himself from the Gentiles when certain
men were around. Paul was most certainly
reminding Peter to “not call anything (or anyone) impure that God has made
clean.” As the apostle to the Gentiles, Perhaps
Paul was motivated to remind Jews and Gentiles alike that salvation is by
grace, not works or birthright.
In 1 Corinthians 5, it is again Paul who is judging sin
within the Church. The city of Corinth was noted for everything sinful. It was
here that Aphrodite’s great temple existed along with 1,000 temple prostitutes.
It was an “anything goes” sort of city and many in the church came out of this
type of immorality (see 1 Corinthian 6:9-11). In verses 5:1-5 Paul metes out
the punishment for a man in the church who was in an incestuous relationship
with his step-mother. Perhaps Paul’s
motivation is to show the church that grace doesn’t allow sin. Christians
mustn’t be “godless men, who change the grace of God into a license for immorality”
(Jude 4). “Unconditional love does not
mean unconditional acceptance of bad behavior.” One more thing to note in this
passage is in verses 12-13. It isn’t our
job to judge those outside of the church, only those inside. You can’t
expect unregenerate sinners to act like Christians, but we do have a
responsibility to hold brothers and sisters accountable to not bring shame to the
church of Jesus Christ.
From these examples, we can see certain judgments we in
the Church can make that are judicious, not judgmental. After initially
examining yourself, if you wonder if you are to address something that is
sinful in a brother or sister in Christ any judgment must pass the THINK test.
Is it:
True
Helpful
Inspiring
Necessary
Kind
Then answer a few more questions:
Has God chosen me to address this?
Has God chosen me to address this?
Is there Scriptural principle being broken?
Have I prayed about the issue?
Another good habit is to ask a mature Christian to pray
for you without telling him/her the circumstances. Say something like, “I’m
troubled by the behavior of a brother or sister, but I need Holy Spirit
guidance on what do to. Would you please pray for me?”
If you become convicted by the Holy Spirit that you are
to address the issue, Matthew 18:15-17 is a perfect place to learn the correct
way to be judicial regarding sin in the church. First one on one, then with one
or two others, then finally before the church.
Helpful Scriptures Proverb 16:2 All man’s ways seem
innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord. 1 Samuel 2:3b for the
Lord is a God who knows, by him deeds are weighed1 Samuel 16:7 …the Lord looks
at the heart. Finally, Paul’s admonition to Timothy is great advice for us all:
“Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father, to the younger men as brothers, the
older women as mothers, and the
younger women as sisters, in all purity.” 1 Timothy 5:1-2
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