The best prayer and the greatest, the noblest and right, herein is the focus. No purer petition shall be found than that one for which we have pleaded our case to be its answer. The spring of service can never fail when it draws deeply from the wells of spirituality. For our neighbor and our enemy, the gift will be no finer than its giver. Offer thyself to God.
“We have all had parents who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!” (Hebrews 12:9)
I grew up hearing the old church mothers exhorting that the Lord desires a ‘yes’ from his people. Although I thought I knew what that meant, it has not been until now, many years later in my walk with God, that I understand it. What has become most clear to me along the way is all that it does not necessarily mean. It cannot always suggest that I have turned away from God to seek worldly pleasures. It doesn’t imply that I have refused God’s commands. If it pertains to my willingness to engage in ministry, I cannot be considered slothful.
I have learned that the ‘yes’ God wants from me and us all is the readiness to submit to his plan for our lives and by the path he has chosen. Simply, it is to follow God’s plan God’s way.
The Necessity of Conditioning
We often wrestle with God’s purpose for us despite our sincere desire for it. God may have given us a glimpse of his intent for our lives, but his plan for our possessing that goal may not be as convenient as we expect it to be. In our hearts, we sometimes rebel against the chosen path and, more notably, against it being our Father’s choice for us. We rebel because the way God leads is designed to elicit a faith-filled response from us, and never did we imagine that the way of faith could be so difficult. We will be tested and kept relying on God’s grace.
God promises us, however, that the process will never destroy us and that he has a plan and the power to restore anything lost during that time. But a process it is. The blessedness of the path, however, is that we will be made more efficient in God’s plan.
Among the greatest stories in Scripture are the lessons we discover in the life of Joseph. At a young age, God showed Joseph his life’s purpose, but it was 13 years before it became reality. God knew that Joseph had to be trained and conditioned to carry the vision of God. It is the same for us. There is never lack in the vision. The work of God within us is in perfect condition, like a seed awaiting prime soil conditions. The vision, however, has to be sheltered from the very ones who possess it.
Lurking in the saintliest hearts are all the vices that, under a different kind of circumstance, may halt the purpose of God in our lives. So God must perform a work on the heart that makes the two—his vision and the bearer—compatible. This work is also necessary because without the bearer being conditioned, the weight and demand of God’s vision would simply be unbearable.
Is God Unfair?
Joseph would never have become rescuer for his people had he resisted Egypt. Now a little common sense offers some explanation here. There is no one who being kidnapped to live in bondage to another person wouldn’t utterly detest his circumstance. There are unfortunate people today—the ones we see on milk cartons or in the news—somewhere living lives that have been forced on them. Joseph’s situation was similar. Our common humanity with Joseph assures us that there were tough days when he cried and became hysterical and longed for his parents and festered with hateful feelings at everyone, including God. There must have also come the day when the tragic reality seized him that he was never leaving Egypt.
It is in times when our situation is formidably colossal and sealed with finality that maturity and faith must be relied on to teach us how to cope with the hand we’ve been dealt. Although Joseph could have never factored Egypt into God’s plan for his life, he would never have survived it without looking beyond the hopelessness of his dilemma. He must have fought himself not to doubt in his darkness what he had once seen in the light.
Is God unfair? Does he want to punish us without cause? Surely he would not contradict his own character to bring about his purpose. No, but the process to God-given greatness, which God carefully controls, is necessary for the promotion he wishes to bring us. The promotion God gives is different from what we see in the world. God’s promotion comes with a righteous objective. He doesn’t raise people just to live in self-absorbed privilege of any kind. Instead, promotion comes as a precursor to righteous judgment that will institute good and halt evil (Prov. 11:10).
Gaining Clearer Insight
After a person has come through the process that God has designed for them, God may bestow a certain abundance or success upon him or her, just as he did for Joseph; only now it is abundance to one for whom it no longer matters. This is because God’s process brings clarity of priority and insight and excises all attachment to things and invention and the frivolous so that what remains is a heart fixed upon the purpose of God.
Thus, those who resist the process resist their own deliverances and those of others in the future who depend on their faithfulness to the process. There is a host of people that only God can see that depend on the process of extraction—the fire—that God desires to lead us through; not only that we may be their teachers, but rather that we might open to them the way into God’s righteous cause.
The point is poignant: Our suffering is redemptive and reaps a harvest we cannot yet see. The vision of God for Joseph, as it is for us, was all-encompassing. Joseph did not merely become prime minister or the architect of a survival plan for Egypt’s devastating famine. He was a spiritual deliverer of God’s people into promise, an intercessor between God and man.
“God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.” (Genesis 45:7)
The Unveiling
God’s plan for us is immense and pervasive, but he requires that we be in the place he designates for us. This is what our life is about, calling. The call of God is not a vocation or anything we may presume it to be. Contrarily, it is what we learn by spiritual intuition, as Joseph received dreams from God, and it is the righteous purpose that lures us into position. Our position, the place of purpose, is where God ultimately wishes for us to land. It is unimpeded, Spirit-empowered ministry that was always God’s intent, the life force deeply implanted in the seed. For Joseph, it was as ruler in Egypt.
It is crucial to understand here. The promotion God gives is not the same as the position. Promotion is never a sigh of relief but only a sign that we should proceed to the highest purpose God has chosen for us. What good was Prime Minister or any leadership position to Joseph if, let’s say, he were still micromanaged by a suspicious Pharaoh or caught up in the thicket of political skirmish? The scenarios are endless, although there is no indication of this type of circumstance in the story.
The point is that the fortuity of being taken from prison to the palace within itself could not signal the most important thing God wanted to give Joseph. God’s blessings—true blessings—don’t lend us further grief. It should also be clarified that God’s plan for us is not simply a pain-to-promotion scheme. Why would God punish us just to reward us with plenty? Could he not have given us the plenty without the pain? This is how we know that there must be some redemptive purpose in our suffering. God’s own character safeguards us.
The promotion God gives us guarantees all the authority and comfort with which we may execute his plan that we now understand is no longer about us. This promotion catalyzes, or initiates, the full intent of God in one’s life. So it wasn’t merely a leadership post for Joseph; God made him to rule, to be the chief executor. He was granted unlimited power to act as he saw fit on behalf of all Egypt. Pharaoh took the signet ring from his own finger and placed it on Joseph’s hand telling him, “I am Pharaoh, but without your word no one will lift hand or foot in all Egypt” (Gen. 41:44).
It was a staggering turn of events that must have sent shockwaves throughout the region, amazing Joseph just as well. But God was still getting his way with Joseph. As prime minister (the promotion) God gave Joseph the means and clout to rule (the position and purpose) and not just a reward for his suffering. This led to him engineering a rations strategy for the famine whereby he saved and sustained Egypt and God’s chosen people and, thereby, God’s plan for them. Ultimately, he delivered the Hebrew people into God’s promise and helped pave the way for Christ. How important was Joseph in the plan of God—and his suffering.
More on this topic: God, You’re Killing Me! and New Strength is Coming!
I find that the longer I live the Christian life the more the journey itself brings me joy. In my opinion, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress has done the most to depict the winding path early Christians called the Way, full with its many frights and thrills. In the classic allegory, Pilgrim makes his way to the Celestial City and encounters several characters and places that alternately serve to buffet and aid him. What I can never escape when reading the story is the intimacy that characterizes Pilgrim’s relationship with his Lord as he progresses, a friendship that sustains him before he ever reaches the eternal city.
I’ve met Christians in life that concern themselves too much with getting to Heaven or, surprisingly, are unsure about what awaits them on the other side. This is not God’s desire for us: Heaven is his promise. Our concern now should be accomplishing his will and developing the wonderful relationship he has given us to share. We will discover this relationship to be an ever-evolving fellowship. It is our privilege to hear God’s voice, watch him answer prayer, and work through us to heal and redeem the wretched. But it is also his loving care of us to let the heavens close at times, forcing us to trust him. Our character is perfected as we learn to confidently rely on the promises we already know. With time and progress, through good and bad situations, that relationship becomes incredibly real and dynamic.
It’s hard to convey this to the person on the outside looking in, the unsure seeker who needs to own all of his confidence on the front end. Augustine, however, explained, “Faith is to believe in what you do not yet see; the reward for faith is to see what you have believed.” To put it in a slightly different way, a person should take God at his word and bet on the process. Let me use an illustration.
I enjoy tennis. I have also enjoyed introducing others to the game of tennis. I’m not nearly a pro—I’ve been much better than I am now—but I can strike the ball and control it well. So I can play. If you ask any person who plays tennis decently well, they will tell you that it is frustrating to teach the game to a person who only wishes to get out on the court and bang balls. Tennis requires a moderate degree of skill just to control the ball. So to play with a mere novice usually means that the more skilled person will be the one chicken-footing it around the court after wild balls.
But an aspirant who takes the time to study the game and learn technique; practices intensely and develops hitting with power; works through complex shots and strategies; and wins as many points, games, and sets as he’s lost—in the end (and well before then) that person will have gained a confidence in the game at which he may have thought he was only going to fail. His joy will renew itself each time he steps on the court and displays his prowess.
So it is walking with God. The Lord has buried incredible joy in the instruction of the course. We don’t have to know everything before we embark because all that is necessary will come in God’s time. The surest thing we do need, however, is the knowledge that as deep as our need is for God so is his longing to intimately acquaint us. And, like Pilgrim, that relationship will usher us from earth to glory and last forever.
I had a close friend in high school that I had known since elementary days. The shocking news came one evening on the radio that his mother had been killed in a car accident. He was also in the car and had been badly injured. He didn’t return to school for a long time.
I didn’t get to see him for a few days after his return. He usually came by car, whereas I rode the bus; we didn’t have any classes together. I really wanted to see him, but I found myself seizing whenever I pictured us greeting for the first time. I had hurt for him while he was away, but I didn’t know how to approach him in his sad new reality.
I still remember the day I saw him: He was standing by his locker at the lower end of the busy central hallway in leg and arm casts and on crutches, his helpers attending him. When I spotted him and his entourage on my left, I thought to stop and draw near, but I kept walking instead. To this day that moment pains me, and I wish for it back.
Moving Beyond Our Own Fear
I think this scenario occurs more often than we can tell. Most of us know or have known people that have experienced great distress or tragedy. Our hearts bled for them and many prayers were offered on their behalf, especially with the understanding that their misfortune could have easily belonged to us. Yet fear overtook us when we felt to go and comfort them.
Some of us get it right because we do call and show our faces or lend a hand. Still, there are no easy textbook methods for dealing with people in pain, no tried-n-true icebreakers for tragedy. If you’re like me, you fear other’s emotions coming unhinged and your response. I’ve discovered that there is no pretty way to empathize with hurting people other than to wrap myself in their sackcloth and cover my head with their ashes.
But I’ve also learned that people do not require much to know that you’re there for them. In fact, in difficult times the little you do goes a long way, more so than when times are good. Truthfully, it’s not always that we can do much to help where help is most needed because visceral pain is deeply internal and personal and takes time to heal. People just want to know they’re not alone.
Learning to Empathize
When we don’t know how to respond, that is the way to respond: with honesty. I got a second chance at this a few years ago when a special mother of mine passed away. I was able to embrace her son and say, “I don’t know what to say, but I’m praying for you and I’m here if you need me.” In my communications studies we were taught about immediacy, being in the moment and present to the other. In my opinion, honesty and presence is how to deal with people in their distress.
Let me add a final suggestion. Make yourself do what you honestly feel despite your reservations. What you do for the other person, in all its glorious inadequacy, will mean far more to them than it will to you. You cannot disallow that it may be some part of what you say or do that might pull them through their despair.
More on this: What Job’s Friends Did Right
While outdoors sweeping debris from the morning’s yard waste pickup, I came upon a very large worm and tossed it aside in the cleanup. But I wasn’t settled about it and thought I had better check and be sure about what it was. It was actually a young snake 5-6 inches in length, although I couldn’t immediately tell. It was turned upside down and was rigid, playing dead. Once I got it turned over on its belly, its little head rose to attention, striking at the broom once, tongue flicking.
I’ll probably draw the ire of some now. I found a plank of wood and killed the little feller. I hated doing it with everything in me; and perhaps I didn’t have to. I considered freeing it, but I wasn’t certain that I wouldn’t be creating a ‘bigger’ problem for a later time or for someone else. So I just did the deed and ached inside.
It wasn’t unlike other times I nearly needed therapy for cutting down squirrels, birds, and turtles in their prime. And who has been more afflicted than me by unwittingly “manslaughter-ing” three mice in three separate incidents, at home and work, with well-placed steps. I still freak out when I step on things. Kyrie eleison.
This moment, however, brought a scripture to mind that afforded me some peace: “A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, but even the compassion of the wicked is cruel” (Prov. 12:10, NASB). At least I know I wasn’t being cruel. We can dispute what animals deserve life in certain situations at another time, but the verse offered me a chance to meditate, even about snakes.
I believe we have a duty to God to care for and treat animals with respect for a few reasons.
First, we have God’s direct commands and scriptural implications. God created the earth and filled it with life, and he took pride in what he had created. The animals are his creation just as we are. Part of his Sabbath injunction is rest for working animals. Everything gets a break. There were also a number of civil rules in place protecting animals and their masters in certain cases for economic purposes.
Second, we can conclude that God loves animals. We must assume that the mercies of God extend to all his works, not just humans. Jesus, in his several references to God’s care for us, often draws upon nature in his teachings: “Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father” (Matt. 10:29). Furthermore, animals, as part of Creation, are not only God’s creative expression, but perhaps also an expression about his character that isn’t evident now.
Third, animals have souls. As our theological understanding goes, the soul is the seat of aspects such as the will, emotions, personality, conscience, and even the life force itself. All of these features are found in animals, including their physical senses that are often more advanced than the same in humans. Journalists know that stories about cute pets—puppies and kittens—quickly grab people’s hearts. And who can forget the stir created by quarterback Michael Vick and his dogfighting crimes. If animals were any less what we ourselves are, we might not react the way we do about them.
So, finally, animals have deep meaning to human life. We say of dogs that they are “man’s best friend” because they love unconditionally. Animals bring enjoyment to families. They work for us and with us to make life happen, like in farming. They sense our emotional and physical ailments, even disaster, and they warn us and save lives. They lift our heavy spirits when life has taken its toll.
Theologians relegate animals and creation to general revelation, opposite special revelation. General revelation assumes knowledge about God through what is plain in nature, in human conscience, or through divine providence. Some go as far as to conclude that it doesn’t bring us to special revelation, spiritual or saving knowledge, often understood as derived by means like the scriptures and other supernatural experiences.
I’m not sure I fully agree with that notion. No, nature doesn’t specifically tell of Christ; however, if it is indeed God’s revelation, he can do what he desires with it, including open the eyes of the heart. Psalm 19 is the supreme text on both revelations. Countless many have encountered the Holy One simply by pondering nature, reminding me of Brother Lawrence. Have you ever watched a bird close-up from your kitchen window or a spider building its web in the early evening? Does the budding spring or fading fall connect you to something immensely deeper than this life? If these things don’t catapult you to God, I challenge you to look again.
I cannot be sure that our pets go to Heaven, but I am sure animals are there, according to scripture. Maybe too I’ll recover all my heartache when I arrive at my mansion on a gorgeous mountain there. And I’ll discover a few squirrels, birds, turtles, mice, and, yes, even a friendly snake waiting to greet me. Wishful thinking? Maybe, but with God, well, nothing is impossible.
When temptation comes, it often arrives like a tempest. And doubt, driven as a gale, overwhelms the mind and blasts every nook of sensibility. Floods of desire breach every restraint and choke all low-lying defenses. The soul, the unfortunate city, burns with emotions, ablaze in fear and self-loathing. But the storm passes and much remains unscathed. Now all is still. Just then you catch sight of the old lust that itself watched the storm blow in, waiting.
Commentary
1 – True temptation appeals to something within us that is enticed. Have you ever reared your defenses against a temptation and wondered why you were dealing with it? We err if we don’t understand that temptation would never exist if the lure did not already have some ground, interest or advantage, within us, for that is what is exploited.
2 – Old temptations are the toughest. It is usually not the new enticements that trip us up. We can usually toss them off easily if we’re committed to another way. So, like storms, they rage and blow, but blow over. It’s that something that is strongly lodged within us, however, the matter we’ve been dealing with for years, that constantly knocks us to the ground. We all know these by name.
3 – Thus old temptations don’t die easily. The scene is meant to express how old habits do not give us the pleasure of being mere storms that come and go. To rid ourselves of these will become a task as personally engaging as the temptation is known and surely a fight to the death. Old foes must be conquered.
I attended a Christian college that emphasized togetherness, so dorm life was not unlike having family around. In addition to the RA, each wing on campus had a chaplain and community outreach coordinator, along with a brother- or sister-wing to share the college experience. It worked well and made for good friendships and strong morale.
I served as a chaplain in my junior year. It wasn’t the best experience because I was a total mismatch for the wing; perhaps it is more accurately stated that many of the guys didn’t really have Jesus on their minds! But if it was paying my dues in any way, then that something better came the following year when I was promoted to be a spiritual life dorm director.
Bursting with Love
As the dorm director I worked with the men’s campus chaplain and supervised six wing chaplains of my own. I had great guys. I bore a vision of an internally strong and personally rewarding experience and not our going through the motions of doing what campus chaplains did devoid of real meaning.
I spent the first three weeks casting my vision and building camaraderie, and by the midterm I knew my group was a pot of gold. They were quality people and leaders that I deeply respected, and I really wanted them to know how much I appreciated them.
Each week we had Dorm Group, a time when we met just for peer review and any type of devotion or fun I chose. This particular week I had to get out of my system how much love I felt for these men. I was so grateful to God for their gifts and how they contributed to the group. So I decided that I would tell them face-to-face during Dorm Group, each man individually before the group; however, I also knew that I would be overcome with emotion.
Well I was one giant teardrop! But I made sure that I left it all on the table and that they knew I didn’t see my place only as the scholarship role it was. They were very gracious.
Go Ahead…Do It
Expended but relieved, I cut the meeting short and everyone left out quickly, yet they still wanted to hang out. They all decided to head down to one of the chaplain’s rooms and told me to come along. I really just wanted to sober myself up and maybe head down later, but some pined for me to come, so I did.
When we had all sat down, the host pulled back a curtain where there was a surprise party all set for me! I was stunned. They had been planning their feelings toward me that week just as I had done for them. In fact, they thought I was on to them by the way they abruptly left the room, but I had never detected a thing.
Our meeting continued in that room as one-by-one they let me know how much they appreciated me as their leader. The entire night was deeply moving. They told me later what I already knew, that it could’ve only been God knitting our hearts together like that.
Isn’t God cool? I encourage you to unburden your heart of all the love and admiration you’ve wanted to share with someone but felt too ashamed to do so, or you diminished the act. Do it. Write a letter. Whisper it during the car ride. Say it in the silence at dinner. Promise yourself. You can never guess how repercussive the kindness may become.
It was election season and I worked with a Christian woman who was also a staunch Democrat. We often enjoyed spirited conversation on politics and the presidential candidates. One day I decided to explore her ideas on a hot-button topic, same-sex marriage, one her camp supports. “It’s not for me,” she said, “but I can’t judge them. I can’t judge what they do because I don’t have a heaven or hell to put them in.”
I was disappointed with her response, tinged with relativist notions and biblically questionable. She finished: “The Bible says, ‘Judge not that ye be not judged.’”
Who Gets to Judge?
I think society and many Christians get what it means to judge wrong. My friend cited God giving us free will to do as we please. This was meant to suggest that we all possess the right to act on our own terms and that, in the end, judgment belongs to God. Who are we to speak out against another’s action when God has given that person the freedom to do it?
So I countered: Is the preacher wrongly passing judgment every Sunday when he cries out against sin and evil? Is the parent being unduly judgmental when he or she cracks down on a teen’s misbehavior? Her response was that her opinion doesn’t matter. Whatever she could say would indeed be to wrongly judge another; however, if she added that it was wrong because God said so, then it held weight and was a worthy judgment.
Semantics? Confusion about to judge? A cop-out? Or nonsense? I can accept that being a follower of Christ may give me little room for personal opinion, but how could this bar me from judging, or forming opinions about others and issues? If anything, it should mean that I am more resolute in my beliefs.
Judging: A Natural Thing
I argued that each day I act, reason, and make decisions based on my convictions, amongst people and apart from them. But I don’t necessarily have to add that God approves or disapproves the what-why-and-how of my actions or any other’s. It also brought me to a major point in our discussion: Everyone judges.
Judging others is a very natural thing we humans do. Even animals judge. Humans are highly rational creatures and, with complex minds, live each day assessing things, ideas, and other people. Further, we make decisions based on those assessments, which are informed by many factors, including spiritual and moral beliefs. We naturally judge (or analyze), need to judge (or scrutinize) for survival, and will judge (or inspect) daily.
The Best Way We Judge
The scriptures do not refute this. The New Testament speaks about judging in several places; however, the inclination is never about whether we judge, but how we judge.
We get it wrong for a simple reason: We don’t know what the Bible says. So let’s start where my interlocutor did, in Matthew 7:1 and Jesus preaching his Sermon on the Mount. The verse does say, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”—but what does this mean?
Jesus is advising against harsh, condemnatory, and unjust moral assessments about another person. The next five verses do more to explain. Verse 2 warns that cruel judgments have a way of finding their way back to us, not from God but our fellow man. It is in verses 3-6, however, that the first verse is best clarified.
In a humorous stroke Jesus questions the people about looking into the eyes of their brethren and pointing out “specks,” or personal flaws but doing so with 2×4 beams sticking out of their heads! His illustration suggests that a person is unable to properly assess another’s flaw because he himself is not seeing clearly to do so being blinded by his own greater flaw.
The point is that one of the best ways we judge is by taking careful inventory of ourselves before we chance to rule on others. Thus, making private, weighty character assessments about people, whether we wish to call it Christian or not, is a moral matter and should never be done hastily, with cruelty, or in an unforgiving manner.
The Moral Guard Within
Paul adds a notable thought in 1 Cor. 2:15 where he says, “But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one” (NKJV). Paul had been contrasting natural wisdom and spiritual wisdom, indicating that the two are incompatible and that the natural, or carnal, man is incapable of attaining Spirit-derived concepts.
Then (v. 15), he says that a person born of God is capable of analyzing all things because he does it by the Spirit and according to God’s moral self-disclosure, although this person himself is not easily understood by others.
It is a startling equivalence to Jesus’s own words to Nicodemus in John 3:6, 8 where he says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit;” then, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (NKJV).
The importance of both Jesus’s and Paul’s words is not merely the contrast between spiritual and earthly knowledge. They also draw attention to the moral front that God has placed in the earth in his people and, by common grace, in the hearts of all who endeavor to do right.
It is why the world doesn’t fly apart in chaos and evil. It is why we have public defenders, police, judges, prosecutors, and policy advocates—to bolster truth and justice and eliminate wrongdoing. Paul calls these people the “ministers” of God (Rom. 13:4, NKJV).
Further, to claim that judgment solely belongs to God, as my friend did, would be to risk forsaking what God has to say (or has said) explicitly about a matter. Christians should always be taking their cues from the Spirit of God, just as Jesus did (cf. John 5:30), for such is what permits us to preach in pulpits and move beyond there to protest in the public square and pound the pavement against social evils.
How We Judge Others
Now, how do we judge? There are a few biblical insights to learn here that are difficult to deal with independently because they operate together in scripture. So I will list them all and then present them in biblical scenario.
Christians are to judge: 1) lovingly, 2) considering the state of the other person, 3) restoratively, and 4) with pure motives.
There are a few places in the New Testament where we find these lessons. In both Romans 14 and 1 Cor. 8, the apostle Paul discusses issues Christians were having concerning certain foods and meat. In Romans, the issue concerned converts that were hesitant about foods their personal faith outlawed; in Corinthians, the concern was whether Christians should purchase and eat meat that had been used in idol worship. What Paul has to say regarding each scenario is very interesting and worthy of study.
For here, however, the scenarios serve to backdrop a Christian civil duty, and it is Paul’s response that needs a thorough examination.
Paul’s position is best summed up in Rom. 14:21: “It is better not to eat meat nor drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.” What is more important to see, however, is how Paul deals with the fact that many people had begun to make judgments about others based on their decisions to participate or not in certain foods.
For instance, in 1 Cor. 8:1, he begins by quoting the people, then turning their argument back on them. I will paraphrase here since most translations don’t showcase what’s happening: “Now concerning things offered to idols: You say, ‘We have full knowledge that idols are nothing’—and you’re right. But it is not knowledge that matters here. What we know often gives us a big head and leads us astray! It is love, however, that builds folk up, and love is what matters regarding your weaker brother.”
It merges into the point the apostle makes in Romans 14 that any judging we do of others must be done fully considerate of a person’s state of need. People act based on their maturity level. Those who are more advanced should not be critical of those that are immature or whose faith they know little about (and vice versa, but Paul places more responsibility on the stronger brother.)
Paul makes the case that we are not to judge our brethren unfairly because we all belong to the Lord, and we are not to judge all others unfairly because, ultimately, all judgment does indeed belong to God and we are stewards of his righteousness and not lords of our own opinion.
Judging and Restoring
Moreover, to act with love and consideration means that judging others will be restorative. It will give light whereby a person may see their shortcomings or wrong. (One cannot repent from sin he cannot see.)
Galatians 6:1 is the hallmark scripture here: “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you may also be tempted.” It is the exact message of Matthew 7:1, John 3:6, 8, and 1 Cor. 2:15 with the extra note that we have the same capacity to harbor the very sin we may wish to condemn in others.
The Sin of Moral Disrespect
Finally, our judging others must be done with pure motives. In Colossians 2, Paul warns Christians to avoid those that would seek to deceive them through philosophies and a reversion to works religion. These people, taking advantage of the apostle’s absence, hassled the fledgling church with the many requirements of the Law of Moses, plus added their own stipulations as a means of controlling the people.
A sound study of this chapter produces a real distinction between God’s law, which was good, and human legalism. The legalistic injunctions these people used to sway the church represent not only impure motive, but also a lack of moral respect.
False and censorious judgment is a moral trespass and the kind of disrespect often highlighted in the Prophets as drawing the indignation of God. What we cannot miss in scripture is that God is a God of love, but he is also a God who loves justice. He desires justice in the earth because he is righteous and cares about civil order and fairness.
It is difficult to believe that a Christian stranded of conviction and confused about his or her role in stemming the tide of darkness brings God much glory. That person will collapse beneath the weight of a small inquisition.
A 'Mike' for Christ 