Having been in church most of my life, I know a lot of "church"
people. I've been lucky though, because I've been able to have a wide
array of experience in my life and part of that is knowing a lot of
people who aren't "church" people. It's amazing what people not in
church think about church folk...most of it due to experience with a
"church" folk who has somehow become representative for everyone.
From my experience, I thought I'd dish on some church folk and some common thoughts about them that ARE and AREN'T true.
Truth: We can be really judgmental. Why is that?
Yep, guilty as charged, I've seen this one first hand...I've BEEN this one first hand. What's funny about this one is that the Bible teaches us not to be judgmental but also to "judge" others in a sense. Say what????? Don't feel weird, there's some issues that confuse church people and non-church people alike.
We've all heard it "Judge not, lest you be judged." But what does that mean?
It seems pretty straightforward, but as one of my Seminary teachers said one time...that's a great verse, but the verses that immediately follow that verse talk about how we are supposed to look at the fruit of someone's life and judge for ourselves where they really stand. That's confusing Some of them get the "judge not" and just keep their mouths shut, no matter the situation. Others really get the verses after that and are real good at exposing others' inconsistencies, going too far and hurting people. But honestly, either extreme is wrong and it's usually based on a wrong understanding of the word "judge".
The way I understand it, when the Bible says "judge not, lest you be judged", it's talking about making a judgment call on someone for good, in the eternal fashion, such as condemning someone or writing them off. That's not our role at all...we don't decide someone's fate, declare them worthless or put them on the OUT list. Romans 14:4 even says that "who are you to judge another man's servant? To his own master he stands or falls..." So, that's God's job to put the final stamp on someone's life. This understanding gives us the measure for hope for anyone on this Earth and helps clarify our role here, which is to show God's love to people on this Earth as much as we can.
So how should be evaluate correctly?
Well, then what about the "fruit" stuff... that is meant for us to know whether we should know or not if someone is helping us to follow God or not. It's not punitive, it's informative, for many reasons
For example, if I give you some advice or tell you to do something and you go "hey, that's not what the Bible says", either I'm wrong or you're wrong or there's a synthesis of the two things in conflict that we aren't both aware of yet...maybe our disagreement helps one of us or both of us find truth (that's part of the reason that the Bible says "as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another". In case you haven't thought about it, iron doesn't sharpen iron by not conflicting with them.) Great!
For example, if I give you some advice or tell you to do something and you go "hey, that's not what the Bible says", either I'm wrong or you're wrong or there's a synthesis of the two things in conflict that we aren't both aware of yet...maybe our disagreement helps one of us or both of us find truth (that's part of the reason that the Bible says "as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another". In case you haven't thought about it, iron doesn't sharpen iron by not conflicting with them.) Great!
Secondly, you may need to share this with me...not so you can scoreboard me or out of motivation to be "over" me or to "put me in my place", but so that I won't be wrong and dishonor Christ. You don't beat me into submission or stop loving me or if I disagree with you, just write me off...wrong, wrong, wrong... you are to pray for me, love me and be my brother/sister through this time in my life as I learn or you learn or more likely, we both learn. NEVER is this meant to be used to look down on someone as inferior...ever.
The correct way to "judge" (as in evaluate) would be like looking at someone who is sick and saying "Hey man, you look green, are you okay? Can I help you?" It's concern...
Or, if someone's life is obviously not focused on honoring God by the way they choose to live their life according to God's Word, it gives me a clue as to how I should weight their advice or opinion. An extreme example is someone who continues to lose most of their money in the stock market trying to advise me on how I should invest my money...yeeeaaah, right...I'll pass.
Unfortunately, some believers misconstrue that to mean that we need to put down or look down on others. Some people misuse the things the Word says about evaluation to pump themselves up in their insecurities, such as, they feel that if they can measure themselves against someone else and be better they can feel better about themselves. Sometimes, people can try to find their worth in seeming to being better than others instead of finding their self-worth in Christ...choosing to focus on others problems so they don't have to contend with their own, either in a move to avoid hard things in their life or an blind thinking they are being "selfless" by suffering in their problems while they help others. That's not Biblical at all.
Matthew 7:3 says ""Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" Galatians 6:2 tells us that we must "Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ." So we have to help others with their problems. If we wait for all our imperfections to be handled before we help a friend, we'll never help anyone. So what is this verse trying to say? What this verse is saying is don't use the problems of others to avoid dealing with your own issues...we are to confront issues in our own lives for the health of us and our friends.
Romans 14:3 says "Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don't think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us." Christians can miss this and get off track, when in truth, we all measure ourselves against only one person...Christ. None of us measure up to Him.
So, in final, here's the deal...I say this next thing a lot. In Ephesians 4:15, Paul tells us that we should "speak the truth in love". Sometimes the loving thing to do is to point out that someone is wrong, but even in speaking the truth, we can never sacrifice doing it in a loving manner. Here's love for you...1 Corinthians 13 says love is this...check your love when you do this.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. (JC: envy)
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
The correct way to "judge" (as in evaluate) would be like looking at someone who is sick and saying "Hey man, you look green, are you okay? Can I help you?" It's concern...
Or, if someone's life is obviously not focused on honoring God by the way they choose to live their life according to God's Word, it gives me a clue as to how I should weight their advice or opinion. An extreme example is someone who continues to lose most of their money in the stock market trying to advise me on how I should invest my money...yeeeaaah, right...I'll pass.
Unfortunately, some believers misconstrue that to mean that we need to put down or look down on others. Some people misuse the things the Word says about evaluation to pump themselves up in their insecurities, such as, they feel that if they can measure themselves against someone else and be better they can feel better about themselves. Sometimes, people can try to find their worth in seeming to being better than others instead of finding their self-worth in Christ...choosing to focus on others problems so they don't have to contend with their own, either in a move to avoid hard things in their life or an blind thinking they are being "selfless" by suffering in their problems while they help others. That's not Biblical at all.
Matthew 7:3 says ""Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" Galatians 6:2 tells us that we must "Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ." So we have to help others with their problems. If we wait for all our imperfections to be handled before we help a friend, we'll never help anyone. So what is this verse trying to say? What this verse is saying is don't use the problems of others to avoid dealing with your own issues...we are to confront issues in our own lives for the health of us and our friends.
Romans 14:3 says "Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don't think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us." Christians can miss this and get off track, when in truth, we all measure ourselves against only one person...Christ. None of us measure up to Him.
So, in final, here's the deal...I say this next thing a lot. In Ephesians 4:15, Paul tells us that we should "speak the truth in love". Sometimes the loving thing to do is to point out that someone is wrong, but even in speaking the truth, we can never sacrifice doing it in a loving manner. Here's love for you...1 Corinthians 13 says love is this...check your love when you do this.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. (JC: envy)
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment