Judging Others – Part Two

 

At least two of our Christian friends had difficulty following my train of thought when I wrote the earlier document on this topic. I am now going to try to do a better job with this revision to both clarify and expand on the earlier version.

 

In part I want to address the topic of “Judging Others”, as stated in the title.  But I also want to emphasize one of the fundamentals of Bible study….It is important to consider not only who is speaking; but also to whom; under what circumstances; and what happened in leading up to it.

 

Our Lord Jesus was referring to people as individuals who should not take it upon themselves to judge the situation or actions of others without first examining their own circumstances and behavior. Each of us has faults. He was not speaking about the joint responsibility of those empowered to make judgments on behalf of the society as a whole…morally, ethically and otherwise. Of course He was aware of the faults of the individual and collective members of Israel’s governing body, the “Sanhedrin”, but that was not the specific focus of His comments. (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-sanhedrin )

 

When I referred to the role of the “church” in the first part of this post on “Judging Others”, it elicited comments that I would like to address now.

 

As background from a technical viewpoint, according to my reference (The New Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN,  2010), the word “church” (or churches) that the Apostle Paul used is not found in the Old Testament but is found 117 times in the New Testament. It is the English translation of the Greek word “ekklesia”, meaning a group of people called out for a specific purpose. It has two major applications to groups / companies of Christians, one of which is “the whole company of the redeemed throughout the present era, the company of which Christ said, ‘I will build my Church,’ Mt 16:18…”. The second application refers to “the singular number (e.g., Mt 18:17), to a company consisting of professed believers…” 

 

In this instance Paul was addressing that second group, the people who comprised the congregation of believers in the Church at Corinth. [As an aside, what holds Christians together should never be the building where services are held, but rather the fellowship of the common bond of faith in the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He redeemed us from death to bring us eternal life. (1 Corinthians 15: 1-4; Romans 10: 9-13)] Paul was addressing the behavior of the collective members of the Corinthian Church for their failure to address the wayward behavior of the offending member of their congregation. (1 Corinthians Chapter Five)

As follow-up to Paul’s teachings when he was there in Corinth, he was reminding them of the Gospel of Grace that they had received, and that had brought them salvation. Further, as a minimum they had an obligation to 1) live lives that would bring credit to their Savior Jesus Christ, and 2) to support one another as brothers and sisters in the faith. Theirs was not a large congregation. In the midst of that pagan, idolatrous city, and country, they had to bond and support each other in the faith if Christianity were to survive there.

Aside from the Apostle Paul’s message to the Corinthian Church on judging the affairs of their peer members, he later addressed the need for making similar judgments by other Gentile churches. In his letter to his protégé` and son in the faith Timothy, he provided guidance / instructions for how churches should judge candidates for their leadership positions of Bishop and Deacons. (I Timothy Chapter Three). Many churches still follow his guidance. It is quite likely that Paul generated those instructions based on his having served as a member of Israel’s Sanhedrin during his notorious life as a Pharisee, prior to his salvation by our Lord Jesus. (Acts Chapter 26)  In both instances, the principles were to be based on their consistency with God’s Moral Laws.

Dr. W.A. Robinson