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  • Writer's pictureBible Brian

If you feel judged by Christian preaching, you probably should


Cherry picking is an ancient art human beings have perfected. The bits we don't like about Scripture, we cast aside as the inane rants of bronze age goat herders. The bits we do like, in context or not, we cling to religiously.


The perfect example of this is Matthew 7:1, which famously says "“Judge not, that you be not judged." Great! I get to do whatever I want, and those pesky, bigoted Christians don't get to even pronounce the word "sin". Expunge it from the dictionary! The power of Christ compels you!


But wait, you're telling me that when I say "this is sin", it's a sin for me to do so? But you're then judging me. Thus, even if your interpretation of Matthew 7:1 was legitimate, you couldn't consistently tell me about it. It is completely impossible to consistently apply this interpretation, and so we must either argue that it is an incoherent verse, or we must ignore everyone in violation of it.


Alternatively, we could recognise that the true context of Matthew 7:1 is found in Matthew 7:2-6. Specifically, it preaches against hypocritical judgement. If you want forgiveness, you have to be willing to offer it. If you want justice, you better not be deserving of it. If you call out sin, do so from a position of righteousness. It is not a blanket condemnation of all judgements, it is a condemnation of hypocrisy in judgement.


Other places throughout Scripture command us to judge righteous judgement. One particular Scripture is 2 Timothy 4:1-5, in which we read "I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."


Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. Doesn't that sound a little like judging? How do you rebuke without first judging someone has done something worthy of rebuke? If you rebuke someone for what they may have done, not knowing if they've done it, you're a bit of a jerk. If you rebuke them for not having done anything wrong, you're even worse. The only way to justly rebuke someone is to rightly judge them.


But note the reason for this command. People will heap up teachers to tickle their ears with fables. Things they want to hear, not the sound teaching found in Scripture. But that naturally means people will also be quite resistant to sound preaching. When we preach the word, they'll hear it as judgement. And the word is full of judgement.


See, Scripture makes it quite clear that none of us meet God's Holy standard. We're all evil. Our thoughts are continuously evil from our youth. Our very hearts are deceitful, and desperately wicked. Thus, we all deserve His judgement. But that's not very nice, is it? Especially when the wages of sin is death. God doesn't like our ways, and so we don't like His preaching.


But this hatred is severely misguided. Rather than hating those who preach the truth, we should instead hate our sin. When truth reaches us, it is not as some oppressive reminder that we are going to Hell. It's an invitation out of it! Scripture consistently affirms that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and is not willing that any should perish, but that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.


When you hear the preaching of the word as "judgement", that's because the word is testifying to your sinful nature. You are guilty, and you know it. Thus, the wise thing to do is stop running like some criminal who thinks he can outrun the law. You may escape the law of man, but it is appointed to every man once to die, and after that, judgement. God will call your every deed, your every word, even your every thought into account, and if He finds the sins you know you commit, He will cast you off forever.


But He has another option, which is better for all involved. The technical term is Penal Substitutionary Atonement, but for sake of making this accessible to all audiences, let's just reduce it to "Jesus died for you". When Jesus, the Son of God, came to Earth, He lived a sinless life. That is, He never did anything wrong. Yet, He died as if He had done everything you ever did. This allows you to effectively "swap verdicts". If you confess Him as Lord, and believe He rose from the dead, He takes your punishment, you take His reward. If that message is so offensive to you that you hate the one who preaches it, all I can say is "why?"

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