Bad Tattoos and Bad Theology

"Only God can judge me." Surely if you live in the United States you have seen someone with this tattooed on their skin if not across their chest. The great banner and buffer for many nominal Christians that they use to hide behind and shield themselves from those other "judgmental" Christians. While it is true that, yes, only God can ultimately judge you, I wonder if they have ever stopped and actually thought about the fact that God will judge them. There can be no doubt that they, in fact, have not put any thought what-so-ever into the matter and before those of you reading begin pointing the finger and slinging the word judgmental around like girl scouts and boxes of cookies let's actually look at the issue at hand here.

During what is considered by many scholars Jesus' most profound and important teaching, The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus outlines exactly what it means to live out a Christian lifestyle. It is from this sermon that we derive the basis of most of our Christian ethic.  In Matthew 7:1 Jesus is addressing the crowds, but more particularly the group of Torah scholars known as the Pharisees. The passage reads like this: "Do not judge, so that you won't be judged. For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you..." I am sure most of you know how this passage continues on so, for the sake of brevity, I will not list the rest. What is key about this portion of the teaching is obviously judgment. The pharisees were casting judgment on people. They were condemning and ridiculing the Jewish people for not upholding the law, and not just the laws established by God, but also the laws that they had conceived themselves over the years. Now that that has been established, what we need to do now is underscore: what does it mean to actually cast judgment? I think it is important to note that for many of the laws that had been established the punishments would be considered extreme by today's standards; for example when Jesus stopped the stoning of the prostitute in the street, her punishment was going to be being stoned to death. It becomes clear quite quickly that judgment is not the act of telling someone that they are in the wrong, but it means telling someone they are in the wrong and then to pass sentence on them. This is what is meant by judgment.

So what then does it mean for Christians in the realm of accountability if someone claims to be a Christian but is doing things and living a lifestyle contradictory to what Jesus established as normative to be one of his disciples? Should we just tend to our proverbial knitting? Or should we be looking out for our brother's and sisters and try to help them out if we notice that they are getting into a tight spot? Paul actually addresses this issue multiple times.

1. Galatians 6:1 "Brothers, if someone is caught in any wrong doing, you who are spiritual should restore such a person with a gentle spirit.."
2. 1 Thesselonians 5:14 "And we exhort you brothers: warn those who are irresponsible, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone." 
3. 2 Thesselonians 3:14 "And if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take note of that person; don't associate with him, so that he may be ashamed. Yet don't treat him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
4. 2 Timothy 2:24-26 "The Lord's slave must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient, instructing his opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will grant them repentance leading them to the knowledge of the truth. Then they may come to their senses and escape the Devil's trap, having been captured by him to do his will."

One thing that becomes quite clear from Paul's teachings is that we as Christians should actively be correcting one another, and that when we do this we should endeavor to be as gentle as possible and showing love to the best of our abilities. 

Perhaps what is my largest pet-peeve is when people say that they are being judged when someone simply points out that they are making a mis-step. Have we really become so sensitive that we cannot handle being told we are in the wrong? The reason Paul teaches that we should correct one another in gentleness and love is so that we can endure together until the end, not to point fingers and make people feel inadequate and cast condemnation. What we have created for ourselves in western Christianity is what is referred to as "functional atheism." Functional atheism is a way of saying that you are a Christian yet living as if God doesn't really exist and that the actions and choices you make bear little to no consequence. This also ties into the commandment of not taking the Lord's name in vain. What is taking His name more in vain: using it in a derogatory fashion or slapping his name upon yourself yet living a life that is not honoring to Him? All one has to do is read through the sermon on the mount to realize that Christ expects at least some effort out of us. The reason that he died was so that when we make mistakes (note that I didn't say if) that his grace covers us. Yet many of us continue living our lives as if this grace is cheap, and we forget that it is in fact costly.

One of the worst things I think that we can do as Christians is take it upon ourselves to be the morality police for the rest of the world. No where in the New Testament do we see Jesus take on the role of the moral police officer. The majority of his efforts were focused on getting the Jewish people, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, awake and back on track. Many of his encounters with sinners, we see him dining with them and frequently engaging them in a manner that seemingly drew them to him. But like the story of when we see Jesus interacting with the prostitute who is about to be stoned, and the end of the encounter He leaves her with a commandment "go and sin no more." Jesus shows her great undeserving grace, but he commands her to stop her sinful ways. Paul even echo's this in his letter to the Romans. "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?." He continues explaining this and then says that we are to walk in the newness of life.

One thing we can never do as Christians is think that we have come to a place where we are incapable of sin, John says that if we say we are without sin that we lie and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). We also as Christians should never forget that we are human beings and where what is human is intermingled with the divine there is going to be some messiness. So we then should accept the messiness, spur one another along in grace and love, and share the good news of Christ.