This post originally appeared as an article in the February, 2012 edition of New Wineskins.

Let’s cut to the chase.

Fellowship is a choice that we make; we choose whether to extend it or not. And to make that choice, we use our judgment.

Judging people is not acceptable. Jesus teaches this unequivocally in the sermon on the mount:

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” ~ Matthew 7:1-2

The verses that follow are clearly relational; they are about relationships with others. We are not to judge others. It is just as apparent in His sermon on the plain:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” ~ Luke 6:37

These instructions are more specific iterations of the golden rule (Matthew 7:12), if you think about it.

Yet they are monumental challenges to us because …

We all judge.

We live in a culture of judgment. We elect government officials; we root for sports teams; we pull for beauty contestants, bachelors and bachelorettes; we try to guess the next decision by Judge Judy; we hope people will be voted off the island.

It’s been that way for a long time. Paul put it this way:

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” ~ Romans 2:1

Some believers – among them, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Greg Boyd who builds on Bonhoeffer in Repenting of Religion – have proposed that a key element of Eden’s original sin was judging: God was judged untrustworthy with His warning about the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It’s difficult to argue with their logic.

It’s wrong, but we do it anyway. Judgment has become so integral to our culture, we have superimposed it on religion and many are convinced that man’s judgment of others is absolutely essential in order to be righteous and preserve righteousness. To a certain degree, that’s understandable, because ….

In scripture, we’re called to judge and use judgment.

“Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” ~ John 7:24

We are, as was the crowd to whom Jesus spoke in this passage, expected to judge whether He is the Son of God.

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” ~ Matthew 7:15-16

We’re warned to discern when people claim to speak for God and lie.

“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?” ~ 1 Corinthians 5:1-2

We are adjured to put immorality out of the assembly.

“If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people?” ~ 1 Corinthians 6:1

We are challenged to adjudicate small claims within the church.

And on and on – to shun indolents and moochers (2 Thessalonians 3:6ff); preachers of gospels that aren’t (Galatians 1:9); deceivers and antichrists (2 John 1:7-11); obstructors and dividers (Romans 16:17, Titus 3:10); those who are guilty of any of whole litanies of sins that stain a church’s reputation (1 Corinthians 5:9-11).

It sounds like there was a whole lot of judging going on in the church of century one.

How do we square that with what Jesus said?

Not all judging is the same.

Stay with me: this is not a matter of semantics, but of grammar. The verb “judge” requires an object. You don’t just judge. You judge something. Or someone.

When Jesus forbids judging as quoted above, He forbids judging people. He said that even He did not walk this earth for the purpose of judging people:

“If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day.” ~ John 12:47-48 (See also Luke 12:13-15; John 5:22-30.)

There will come a time when His words will judge them, but while He walked among men it was not the right time. (Even though He knew their thoughts and the motives of their hearts – see Matthew 9:4 and Luke 9:47 – which we certainly cannot.)

There will come a time when believers will judge the world and angels, too (1 Corinthians 6:2-3) – possibly part of a reign with Him (2 Timothy 2:12; Revelation 20:4-6), but not yet. Not in this world.

We, like Christ, walk this world to save others. We do so by leading others closer to Him.

Furthermore, He says that if we do not judge, we will not be judged:

“Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. ~ John 5:22-24 (emphasis mine)

When He tells people to judge, it is for themselves and to judge what is right (Luke 12:57 – in the context of recommending reconciliation rather than taking a civil court action).

So, may I propose that when we search the epistles and find instructions for us to judge, these are instructions to judge – not people – but their words and actions to determine whether wrong has been done.

In virtually every instance,* the things which are being judged in these cases are, in fact, things and not people. They are sins. They must be judged, weighed, considered, and identified as sin because Christ also did not come to bring law but grace (John 1:17; Romans 6:14; Galatians 2:21; and 5:4).

There was never an intention for the New Testament to be written, collected and regarded as new law. The concept is foreign to scripture entirely. So there was not a pair of stone tablets or even a collection of written scrolls in Jesus’ handwriting filled with commands, exceptions, qualifications, and encryption/decryption codes. Instead, He taught and lived every day what it meant to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. All other applications could be deduced (with the assistance of His present Holy Spirit) and judged from that.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ~ Matthew 18:18

Jesus isn’t talking just to Peter here. He did say the same thing to Peter a couple of chapters before (16:13-20), but here He is in the middle of a discourse about church discipline. He’s thinking ahead. He’s speaking to us, as well as the disciples around Him at that time.

We are called to judge what is sin in this world and what is righteousness; between wrong and right; between exclusive love for self and love for God and for others as surely as self.

We are not called to judge people. We’re not required to assess others’ moral character; just our own. We do not determine others’ salvation. Judging people is not our job. We’re not good at it. We’re not qualified to do it. We’re not authorized to do it.

Yet we must be competent and willing to discern right from wrong because we have a responsibility to fellow believers and to those who have not a clue about Jesus to help them understand Him better and know what He taught, lived, and died for. It’s not an option. Jesus instructs it.

If we are to judge correctly – make righteous judgments, as we are encouraged to do (Luke 12:57; John 7:24) – then we must judge for ourselves what is right (and therefore, what is also wrong). But Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 18 (above) and Matthew 5:23-24 also burden us with the responsibility to help others judge wisely, too.

How do we judge sin without judging people?

Have you ever heard the expression, “Hate the sin; love the sinner”? Our judgment must be like that; we judge the sin (whether acts and words are wrong) but leave judging the person to the Lord at the proper time.

First of all, be sure that you have judged correctly that what the other person has said or done is, in fact, sin. You can discuss a difference of opinion, but you can’t correct someone about a matter on which scripture is silent. Become overly familiar with Romans 14. Not every person who impresses you as wrong is morally wrong – or even necessarily holds a wrong opinion. Not all churches are Corinth or Sardis.

Investigate thoroughly those scriptures cited above which describe the sins and circumstances that require judgment. If the matter before you is one of those, you have good precedent to proceed. If it isn’t, you may not. If the severity of the matter doesn’t begin to approach the severity of those sins and circumstances, ask for the Spirit’s help in discerning (Luke 11:11-13; 1 Corinthians 2:14).

Is the matter before you a matter of sin? Or a matter of opinion? If it’s a question of words, interpretations and/or opinions, remember 2 Timothy 2:23 and Titus 3:9.

Second: be humble. None of us is perfect. None of us is sinless. Those whom we would lead closer to Christ are keenly aware of that. We need to be constantly conscious of it too: we are saved by grace through faith; forgiven yet still sinners. All of us – those who know Christ and those who don’t – will be judged by what we have done (Matthew 25) and what we have said (James 3:1; 2:12) — with the exception noted above: those who do not judge others.

If you judge a person — rather than the person’s actions or words — then the way you view them and the degree to which you are willing to love them changes. You’ve decided that they’re not good like you anymore; they’re bad. You begin to feel that you have God’s own authority to judge and your heart begins to crave that power for self over others. You begin to feel – in the words of the old Saturday Night Live character “Church Lady” – “a little bit superior.”

If you judge words and actions, leaving the person out of it, you are free to continue loving them as Christ loves. You can correct them in humility and grace — and probably in tears (Acts 20:31; 2 Corinthians 2:4). A different, more effective approach than berating and condemning. It requires a different heart; the heart of Christ.

Third: love others.

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” ~ 1 Peter 4:8

By odd coincidence, so does bringing back someone who has wandered from the truth (James 5:19-20). I can’t help but think that the two belong together. Guiding the errant absolutely must be done – and done gently (Galatians 6:1; 2 Timothy 2:25).

Applying discipline without love rather than correcting others who sin with love is the difference between telling your son he is a bad boy or telling him he is a good boy who did a bad thing. One destroys self-esteem and the other reinforces the child’s awareness of a parent’s deep love.

How do we leave the other person out of it and focus only on the actions and words that are wrong? We have to find a way, and it’s vital to remain loving, supportive and humble.

May I make a few suggestions – examples, really – about doing that?

• “It’s been said that you (said or did something). Is that true? The only reason I’m asking is – not to judge you – but because I care for your soul. If it’s true, something is coming between you and God.”

• “You know I love you, brother. And when I see or hear you (doing or saying this sin), I see it killing you a little bit more each time. And it’s killing me to see it.”

• “I struggle with (the same sin; or a similar one), sis. I know (or “I can only imagine”) it’s hard to deal with. But I’ll make you a deal. I’ll pray for you and you can pray for me.”

• “I know when people say, ‘Don’t judge me,’ what they really mean is ‘Don’t stop loving me.’ At least, I do! Please trust me: That ain’t a-gonna happen. I am not going to stop loving you. And even if I have a stroke and stop being me and start saying hateful things, God will never stop loving you. His mercies never end.”

These are just a handful of suggestions. You can probably come up with more and better.

No judgment about moral character, human worth, eternal destiny or fellowship in Christ is required to say these things. They are appropriate to say to those who believe and those who do not. And for the believer who loves others (whether they are in Christ or not) and cannot bear to see them hurt by sin, words like these should fall from their lips like gentle rain from clouds too full to contain it.

_{*The singular exceptions I have found are 1 Corinthians 5:12-13, where Paul is referring to specific people whose sins threatened the reputation of the church, and 1 Corinthians 4:3-5, where Paul has been judged by some at Corinth as an inferior apostle. The latter, obviously, is not something that he encourages.}

 

I don’t know what to think.

I don’t know how to think.

I don’t know how to feel.

Life just seems jumbled-up, shaken around in its puzzle-box, disconnected, senseless and out-of-place.

Very little in that life feels known, dependable, familiar, friendly, solid, in-focus, or colorful.

Blogs are supposed to be the place where you tell everyone what you think, even if you haven’t had a thought worth sharing with your own dog for years.

And I can’t. I feel a need to write. There’s an urgency behind it. There’s a frustration with the way the world is. There’s a sense that I used to have an idea what it was all about, but I’ve either forgotten or never really knew.

Or that I was just plain wrong.

Right now, life is a Piet Mondrian painting rendered by Rene Magritte, an Apple device designed by Salvador Dali, an Alberto Giacometti sculpture done by Fernando Botero, a play by Samuel Beckett enacted by Jonathan Winters, a “Matrix” movie directed by Terry Gilliam.

I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like, and the temptation to just not feel at all. Wall it off. Shut it down. Go Vulcan.

It does not compute.

So I don’t know what to think.

And I don’t know what to feel.

There it is, folks: your messed-up friend Keith, in a nutshell, trying not to become a nut.

What do you do with that?

If you’re me, you write.

Sometimes it helps.

Do you think it might be that the reason God is sometimes silent is that there are simply no words to say?

Is it possible that the Lord is silent for 36 chapters of the book of Job because He is so grieved over what has befallen His faithful servant that He can say nothing, do nothing, but mourn in silence?

God permitted what happened to Job. He instigated the conversation with the accuser and deliberately drew Job into it. Intervening in any way to relieve Job’s suffering would have broken the terms of agreement about what the accuser can do to Job and would have affected the outcome of Job’s faith — the faith of a servant in whom God has placed His own faith.

All that God can do is weep in silence at the undeserved suffering of His servant Job.

Until it is time to reveal His own justice and restore what has been unjustly ripped away.

Are there words for God to say when David — confessedly guilty of lust, murder and possibly rape — begs for the life of his unborn child even when God has told the king through Nathan that David’s sin will result in the child’s death? The words have been said. Of all people, the king of God’s people must understand the consequences of sin.

All that can be left is for God to mourn with His servant David, in hopes that the silence will bring peace to his soul.

Until the time when Nathan’s words “Your sin is forgiven” are confirmed through the birth of a son and heir.

And in the garden where Jesus prays the same prayer for His own life, three times, sweating blood in recognition of the injustices, beatings, scourgings and crucifixion to come — what could God say? Jesus had set His face resolutely toward Jerusalem. He had predicted many times what was to come. God had already spoken publicly, twice, to identify Jesus as His Son — with the instruction to those hearing that they should listen to the Son. And one more time to confirm that He had glorified the Name, and would glorify it again.

So God watches and listens to what Jesus had committed to suffer as it unfolds in utter sin, rebellion, self-will and hatefulness on behalf of mankind. To have sent twelve legions of angels to rescue this perfect, sinless Son would have undone all the good the Son had lived to accomplish.

There were no words. Not even darkness, earthquakes and the rending of a temple veil between what is holy and what is not could express the immeasurable depth of God’s broken heart.

Until the time when He restores all things to the way they should be in heaven and on earth.

Sometimes I believe there are no words.

And even God is silent.

What can I say on this dark, rainy Holy Saturday about the resurrection of Jesus Christ that has not already been said, and more eloquently?

Probably nothing.

But I continue to repeat — to myself and to others — sometimes like a mantra of comfort:

“For my family and me, at this time of challenge, the resurrection is the single unique fact in all of human history that can bring us hope.”

In it, God shows His power, desire and passion to turn death into life, pain into bliss, tomb walls into gardens, darkness into light, hope into glory.

When all other alternatives are exhausted through human failure, He stands by the rolled-away stone in the divinely-perfected form of His Son and assures us:

“It is accomplished.

“It’s not over.

“It’s just beginning.”

In this instance, the friends I’m praying for are the folks preparing and gathering for the 2013 Spring “Contending for the Faith Lectures.”

I had such hope when I saw on the sponsoring church’s home page that the topic this year would be “Christ – The Great Controversialist.” I dared to think that the practices of the past might be done away with in this year’s lectures, and that the presentations might actually be Christ-centered, and elaborate on His controversial teachings, life, death, and resurrection – the gospel that saves us.

But here’s their list of topics and speakers, and I greatly fear that the topics (in many cases, at least) indicate a focus on repeating questionable doctrines generated by men and attributing them to God as if scripture relayed them from Him word-for-word, and no human logic or inference or deduction or conclusion was involved. And I suspect that these topics will serve as an opportunity for lambasting as apostate those who disagree with the speakers’ logic, inferences, deductions and conclusions — as well as disagreeing with their insistence that these constitute God’s own doctrine.

I fear these things because of the tenor of these lectures in the past (2012, 2011, 2010, etc.), and so many of the names are the same, and the odds of a change of heart among so many are not very good, really.

So as speakers and attendees prepare, I will again be praying for them the same things I have prayed in years past — and these are the same things I pray for myself and anyone else who desires to speak about, for and in partnership with God, His Son and His Holy Spirit.

I would so very much like to be proven wrong about the things I fear.

I’m probably much closer to a conflict-avoider than a peacemaker, and I don’t have any real hope that Jesus’ blessing in Matthew 5:9 to include conflict-avoiders like me.

But, apparently, arguing — and arguing persuasively — is very much essential to the spread of the gospel. At least it is, if you’re looking at the example of Paul.

When on a mission trip, he almost always went first to a synagogue. (Acts 9:20; 13:5, 14; 14:1 – “as usual”; 17:2 – “as was his custom”; 17:10; 18:4, 19; 19:18.) That makes sense:

1. It’s what Jesus did (Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 12:9; 13:54 and parallel/other references in the companion gospels). And Paul was all about imitating Christ (Philippians 2:1; 1 Corinthians 11:1). 
2. Jews and proselytes in the synagogue would already have a basic familiarity with one God, the law and the prophets. So Paul could start from there to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, who had to die and to be raised from death. Maybe the most complete sermon of this approach was to Pisidian Antioch, recorded in Acts 13:13ff.
3. There, the folks in the synagogue asked for a word of encouragement; Paul preached the gospel, but he did so proving each point from scripture. Not a bad example to follow.

In many instances, he encountered opposition. That means he couldn’t just preach. He had to argue with the Jews who refused to believe (Acts 14:2-7; 15:1-2; 17:1-5; 18:5-6). It was important to demonstrate, both to those who believed and those who doubted, that there was no backing down from the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Once again, Paul was imitating Jesus — who would not back down from persuading people to reach the conclusion that He was the Messiah, the Christ, who had to die and live again.

He didn’t argue much with pagans; there was too much teaching to do. And God had a tendency to either defuse tense confrontations with pagans (often with miracles) or to place Paul in them under circumstances of trial as a Roman citizen so he could teach, as Jesus had prophesied in Matthew 10:19 and Mark 13:11 (which he did, often with remarkable humility and humor – see Acts 26).

So I find that the teaching of scripture is that believers who want to share the gospel …

1. need to spend their words and passion teaching those who do not know God, not so much arguing with them.
2. may have to argue from time to time with those who believe in the one God — sometimes even those who believe in His Son Jesus (as was the case with the circumcision party in Acts 15) — to prove persuasively that the gospel is not a matter of obeying man’s law, but of accepting the forgiveness of God through the grace shown in Jesus Christ.

This is difficult for me. I don’t really like to argue.

But, sometimes, that is what I am called to do.

I understand this is sensitive, especially this close to a Roe v. Wade anniversary, but …

Surely at least you folks who assured everyone that gun control laws will not stop mass shootings must understand that criminalizing abortion will not put a stop to the practice?

I’m all for repealing legislation that requires taxpayers to fund abortions against their consciences — it’s just wrong.

Yet if we really want to reduce the number of abortions, we Christians need to quit putting all our eggs in the anti-abortion law basket. We need to be about the much harder business of meeting, befriending, loving and accepting young unmarried women who are pregnant — especially those who have no history of parental love, no knowledge of a loving and forgiving God or His Savior Son, and no visible means of financial support. We need to be willing to open our hearts, homes and maybe even wallets to help them to choose a better option. We need to be willing to set up vocational training and day care opportunities through our churches. We need to establish fellowships for adoption and scholarships for career-seeking young women who intend to keep their babies.

We need to be willing to provide foster homes for babies given for adoption, and legal assistance with fees, and help in connecting birth-mothers with adoptive families.

We need to be ambassadors of God’s grace in this world, not spigots of judgment and condemnation, and/or legislators of morality.

Anyone can sign a petition, cast a vote, badger a legislator to pass a law, and go back to their lives the next minute, able to salve their consciences that they didn’t make a wrong choice that led to pregnancy and they’re not responsible.

If we’re really serious about saving the lives of unborn children, then we need to face the hard choices, too.

I’m a parent of two awesome adopted children, and I owe more than I can ever repay to some exemplary people who made some very tough choices.

We can try row upstream against the river of public opinion with nothing but anti-abortion legislation, continue to wade through it, or hoist sail by expressing the love that explains why we oppose it and also Who died so that God’s family could grow.

I’m fine with you owning one, but if you do, or own a permit for one, or are licensed to carry one:

I think you need to be as rigorously tested about your knowledge of guns and gun laws as anyone who gets a driver’s license is about laws regarding driving a car.

I think you need to be as insured for gun ownership as any auto driver is required to be against accidents, withbenefits payable to the victim(s) of any crime or accident that occurs with any gun registered to you.

I think you should store your guns unloaded and locked up securely. A glass display case with a decorative key-lock is not secure. (If you don’t own a gun, you should lock up your prescription medicine the same way.)

I know this will not stop violent gun crime, but if you own and carry, you owe it to the people who do not to be as responsible as you can be about your right, to help keep stolen and illegal weapons out of the hands of violent criminals, and to prevent accidents due to loaded and unsecured weapons.

Now for the shock:

I don’t think this ought to be law.

It ought to be the recognized, self-enforced responsibility of every gun-owner to observe these suggestions as the natural course of living in society while owning a gun.

Guns don’t kill people, but people with guns do kill people.

The plain fact is, when disturbed and angry people set out to kill a lot of other people, they don’t generally reach for a baseball bat or a knife or set about the complicated process of securing the materials and building a bomb. There are exceptions, and history is full of them, and the news takes note of them because they are the exceptions.

I don’t know what the breakeven number of murders is to classify a crime as “mass murder,” but we have tended to become numbed to news stories of three, four ,five, six and even more people being shot to death as just a part of life to flinch at but not remember.

We’re saddened when we read a tiny news story buried back in the paper — or an obituary — about a child who was killed by finding a loaded gun in the house and playing with it.

But we don’t take note of it or remember it in the same way that we do when stories of multiple killings are broadcast over and over again on the news and splashed on the front page of the newspaper.

If you own one gun or many, please:

Do what you can to keep guns out of easy access to people who want to kill people — or who don’t know how to use them.

Public prayer in public schools sounds like such a good thing.

I say: No thanks.

I’m a Christian, but I do not want government to have the authority to regulate public prayer in schools. It sets a precedent that allows government to decide what kind of prayer takes place there. It would be fine with a lot of people if Christian prayer had exclusive rights to our schools, but they would not feel that way if the prayers of other faiths and religions were given exclusive rights.

No, it’s best for prayer to remain a private matter in schools. No one is going to send a child to detention for a silent prayer. And to claim that a lack of public Christian prayer keeps God out of our schools is simply inaccurate. He’s God. He goes wherever He wills. And as long as there are those who pray – whether in public or in private – He is welcome in their hearts. And they are testifying to their faith in Him.

If we believe in equal opportunity under the Constitution, but a little more equal for Christian publuc prayer in schools, then we don’t really believe in it.

If we shrug, “Majority rules,” then we’re not facing the reality that Christianity is a fast-shrinking majority.

Plus if we feel that it’s Christian duty to impose our beliefs and practices on others through government, we’re supporting the kind of government where political issues become religionized as well as religious issues becoming politicized.

Governments that sleep with religion lead to corrupting power, not public choice of faith in a free market of ideas. They leave the impression that the favored religion has no intrinsic power or advantage, unless it’s sleeping with government.

Don’t take the United States of America even one step in that diection.

Let freedom ring. Let the power of individual choice rule.

And let your religion prove its power to change and improve lives through your own example.

It seems like everyone who blogs and is my age or younger and attended there has an opinion about the choice of Bruce McLarty as the new president of Harding University, or about the institution’s direction or mission or future.

I can’t say that I really do.

I wish the University well and Bruce McLarty well and that’s just about it.

Sorry if that violates hopes or expectations.

I am grateful for the fine education I was offered and received at Harding from 1973-1977; for the wonderful friends I met and made there; for the experiences one cherishes for a lifetime.

But I must confess I was never really comfortable there.

I think I was too young to perceive the politics or religious convictions attached to the university then, but I was not too young to perceive that a little freedom was regarded as a dangerous thing.

From the way the dorms were locked and bed-checked at night (some without fire doors back then) to the ominous restrictions on attire, decor and behavior, it was pretty obvious that deviation from a well-described norm would not be tolerated. Individualism would be frowned upon. Self-expression would be patrolled.

I’m sure that many of these restrictions have been removed, loosened, or modified to become more socially-acceptable in modern society.

But Harding and I have gone separate ways, and awkwardly since I vacated my dorm room. We have an unspoken deal: They don’t send me any alumni publications or e-mails, and I don’t send them any money, children, or home addresses.

Mostly because, at the heart of it, I think that a really excellent education requires a little bit more freedom for students and trust in their ability to think, provide, and act for themselves than I could have ever hoped to experience there at that time.

That made it, in some ways, a very long four years. Back then – as I’ve shared before – Harding’s motto was “Educating for Eternity.” And one of my roommates observed, “It’s really just four or five years. It just seems like an eternity.”