IS IT RIGHT TO JUDGE? Part 5

IS IT RIGHT TO JUDGE? Part 5

Friday, November 03, 2017

2Timothy [CEV] 3:16-17 Everything in the Scriptures is God's Word. All of it is useful for teaching and helping people and for correcting them and showing them how to live. The Scriptures train God's servants to do all kinds of good deeds.

  Anyone that claims they never judge is kidding themselves. Especially proven by “I’m not one to judge.” . . . a judgment in itself.

  Fact is that most judging, whether righteous or self-righteous ego-centric, is verbal, said conversations being edifying, damaging and/or non-corrective. This being so in various groups. Local congregations included.

  Paul admonished “My friends, I beg you to watch out for anyone who causes trouble and divides the church by refusing to do what all of you were taught. Stay away from them!“ (Rom.16:17) Can this apostolic command be obeyed without judgment?

  It is not that we are to jump to separation. In light of Scripture we are to seek to lovingly counsel first of all. Then if “refusing” persists, label and separate from them.

  We see this pattern in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian congregation riven by the divisiveness he noted in his first letter (1Cor.1:10-13). “Friends in Corinth, we are telling the truth when we say that there is room in our hearts for you. We are not holding back on our love for you, but you are holding back on your love for us. I speak to you as I would speak to my own children. Please make room in your hearts for us. Stay away from people who are not followers of the Lord! Can someone who is good get along with someone who is evil? Are light and darkness the same? Is Christ a friend of Satan? Can people who follow the Lord have anything in common with those who don't? Do idols belong in the temple of God? We are the temple of the living God, as God himself says, "I will live with these people and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people." The Lord also says, "Leave them and stay away! Don't touch anything that isn't clean. Then I will welcome you and be your Father. You will be my sons and my daughters, as surely as I am God, the All-Powerful."  (2Cor.6:11-18)

·         Congregants, Chloe’s family, made a righteous judgment followed by the action of informing Paul.

·         Paul righteously judged the informants as loving concerned honest followers of Christ.

·         Paul passed righteous judgment, exhorting the Corinthian congregants to mark the division leaders and then avoid them. (Also note Rom.12:9; Eph.5:11; 1Thes.5:21; 2Thes.3:6; 2Tim.3:5)

·         The Apostle John exhorted for judgment when necessary. (1Jn.4:1; 2Jn.1:7, 10-11)

 

  Is it right to judge? Yes, but only if done according to the overall teaching of Scripture: Lovingly with correction utmost in mind. This does not however include excommunicating Howard for being adamantly against adding padding to the pews.

EBB4