3/8/21 Mike (see HERE)
Is it possible to share the Gospel without being the
self-righteous, judgmental type? I
believe it is, and here’s why…
In the Bible, Jesus warns his listeners not to judge others
the way the self-righteous Pharisees had been judging Him, who had been just
waiting for a sound bite from him that would allow them to dismiss him and cancel
him out of existence.
Many claim that when Jesus said “Do not judge”, it meant we
should never judge anyone else. But here’s
what he said in context: “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.” (Matt.7)
Jesus wasn’t telling us not to judge. To stop judging would mean we have to stop
thinking. Instead he went on to warn
what would happen if we are judgmental like the Pharisees – “for in the same
way you judge others, you will be judged”.
Rather than teach us NOT to judge, Jesus taught us HOW to
judge. We are to be careful to judge
ourselves first – “first take the plank out of your own eye” he went on to say.
After healthy self-examination, Jesus then taught that “then
you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” The kind of judging we can do for others is judgement
or discernment that will help them, just like physically helping improve their
sight or removing a splinter. We can use
our natural ability and tendency to judge people and the world around us for
their well-being.
One way in which to help others by judging is to help them guard
against false teachers and false teaching.
Later in Matthew 7 Jesus taught how to judge false teachers: “every good
tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit” and “by their fruit you
will recognize them”.
To follow Jesus, then, means that we as Christians will use
our God-given ability to judge and discern truth first (and regularly) upon
ourselves, and then to help others with their problems and to help them recognize
false teaching. This is what I try to do
in my Gospel outreach conversations, such as a friendly and respectful
conversation I had on a street corner with a young man named Mike.
Mike believed himself to be a good person in God’s eyes, so
I asked some questions to help him compare himself to God’s standard – God’s moral
laws such as the Ten Commandments – rather than just human standards like just
being a friendly and positive person. In
doing this I was trying to help him judge himself – to remove the “plank” out
of his own eye – so that he could see more clearly and then to be able to
recognize false teachings he has come to accept.
I tried to help him see the inconsistency in his beliefs
when I asked if he thought he was better than other people. “Oh no” he said, so I pointed out this would
put him on the same level as, say, Hitler!
If we truly believe in good and bad moral behaviors, we need to see
ourselves as somewhere on the moral spectrum, and this means some people will
be better and some worse than ourselves morally. We must naturally do this when we judge
ourselves and others by human standards.
But when it comes to our relationship with God this human
standard of judgment is a sign of the false teaching that makes all most religions
“works-based” – that is, dependent on our own human efforts to earn some sort
of heavenly reward. In contrast, God’s standard
of judgment is His moral perfection, which puts us all in the same moral
category – guilty sinners who can't save ourselves by our own efforts.
Only by God’s standards can we avoid the judgmental, self
righteous attitudes of the Pharisees that Jesus condemned, and include
ourselves in the same sinful category as the next guy, able to judge ourselves
and help that next guy to do the same, and to help them see that we are all
equally in need of the Savior.
Thanks for allowing me to record our conversation Mike! It can be seen on my YouTube channel.
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