Do Not Judge Before the Time

INTRODUCTION:


Today we return to our study of 1 Corinthians

The underlying issue the Spirit is addressing in 1 Corinthians 1-4 is division in the Church. The church in Corinth was divided over several things; shown clearly by their fighting over church leaders – Paul, Apollos, Cephus, and Christ. That division led to many other issues we’ll get to beginning in 1 Corinthians 5. But understand that the root of the division was carnality…living like the world, instead of like Christ.

In the process of addressing the carnality in the Church at Corinth, the Spirit teaches about “true & false wisdom” through the Apostle Paul…

True wisdom is God’s wisdom, but it seems like foolishness to mankind. God knows the beginning from the end, He knows the heart (ours and everyone else’s), He does not do things the way we would, He has a plan and purpose…one higher than anything we can come up with, and we cannot know anything about His Wisdom or Will without the Holy Spirit.

Human wisdom is false wisdom, and it is foolishness to God. It is the carnality that led to division in the church. We know nothing about what will happen tomorrow or even today, we don’t know anyone else’s heart (and we’re often even deceived by our own heart), our plans and purposes are empty because we have no way of making them happen.

Also in the process of addressing the carnality, the Spirit teaches us though Paul about Church. It is not a building; it is those who are blood washed by Christ, but He uses a building as a metaphor…the Church is God’s Temple. It cannot be built according to human wisdom, it is His to instruct and lead as He sees fit (we have no say in those things), it is up to us to contribute to His Work with gold, silver, precious stone NOT wood, hay, stubble.

I trust we came together as the church today to offer praise and to express our love to Father, Son, and Spirit…

Today we begin 1 Corinthians 4…the final chapter of this opening section of the letter to the Church at Corinth, a letter I call “Church 101.” In this chapter we’ll see the Apostles as models of God’s wisdom and see them contrasted with the people in the church at Corinth who were still living like the unsaved, fighting among themselves and involved in ungodliness and hypocrisy.


DO NOT JUDGE BEFORE THE TIME:

A Hint of Perspective

I’ve often heard 1 Corinthians 4:5 and Matthew 7:1-5 used to ignore or justify sin. How so? People use these passages to say we cannot judge anything anyone does. That is not the point and that idea does not agree with other parts of Scripture. People use these passages to ignore sin; we see or hear a Christian in obvious sin and use these as an excuse to say nothing. “I can’t judge them.” But…

James 5:19 Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone among you turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

The Holy Spirit tells us straight out through James that if we see a fellow Christian sin, we have an obligation to lovingly confront them so that they will repent and turn back to the Lord. Even in Matthew 7 we see that we are not to ignore, our brother’s sin; we just need to make sure we are dealing with our own first!

Matt 7:5 remove the plank from your own eye, then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

I’ve also heard people use 1 Corinthians 4:5 and Matthew 7:1-5 to justify sin; when someone sees or hears us sin and says something, we accuse them of judging us. Yet, (hopefully) all they are doing is lovingly confronting us so we are not self-deceived buy the sin that so easily blinds us.

Meanwhile, all this justifying and ignoring of sin leads to people being hurt, the church being hurt, and hypocrisy ruling the day. So, let’s get a little perspective about the word “judge” in 1 Corinthians 4 and Matthew 7. There are two different Greek words used in these passages that are both translated as “judge.” The first one is pronounced “anakritho” and it means to examine or investigate (like when the police investigate a crime scene). The other is pronounced “krino” and it means to pass judgment (like when the jury hands down a verdict of guilty).

Now, let’s consider some verses using these definitions instead of “judge.”

1 Corinthians 2:15 (context is God’s vs human wisdom) “But he who is spiritual examines all things.”

1 Corinthians 5:3 (context is immorality in the church) “For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already passed judgment (as though I were present) him who has done this deed.”

1 Corinthians 6:3 (context is lawsuits between believers) “Do you not know that we shall pass judgment angels? How much more things that pertain to this life?”

Also, in 1 Corinthians 4:3-5 each case of “judge” is the Greek word with the meaning of examine, or investigate. But in Matthew 7:1-5 it is the idea of passing judgment.

To judge or not to judge…confused?

I believe most Christians are. Here is the deal. Anyone who is spiritual, that is they are in communion with the Holy Spirit, “examines” all things. They can perceive and understand things from with a Godly understanding; they know good from bad, right from wrong, God’s Will from man’s will. They also “pass judgment” upon sin; they call sin for the evil that it is. If God says it is sin, then it is sin and something to be avoided. We show compassion on those involved in sin by lovingly identifying the sin and calling them out of it. Love does not ignore or justify sin because sin leads to death (Romans 6:23).

What we cannot judge is whether another believer is contributing to the mission of the Church with “gold, silver, precious stone or wood, hay, stubble” (1 Corinthians 3:12). Again, 1 Corinthians 5 makes it clear we can discern when another person is in open sin, we can recognize sinful actions and words. But, we cannot know the heart and a person’s motivations. We cannot know if another believer is being obedient to God’s will for their lives or not. We may think someone in the church isn’t doing much for the work of the Lord when in fact they could be a great prayer warrior who is as much the reason any real ministry is going on as anyone, or we may think someone is very spiritual when in fact they have everyone fooled, even themselves, and are not serving God at all.

So, armed with this Biblical perspective on “judging,” let us now tackle 1 Corinthians 4:1-5. Again, every instance of “judge” in this passage is the Greek word meaning “to examine or investigate.”


A Time to Judge

This section if 1 Corinthians begins to wrap-up the discussion of the problem of division in the church. The two main points are that the church leaders are servants and their proper evaluation is yet to come.

READ 1 Corinthians 4:1-5

1 Corinthians 4:1
We need to understand that the context of chapters 3-4 make it clear that the “us” in 4:1 means the church leaders they’ve been fighting over (Paul, Apollos, and Cephus). The Church in Corinth (and us too) needed to understand who these leaders were.

First, they were servants of Christ. A leader in the church should never be the object of commitment. These men are Christ-appointed leaders in His church and He appoints men who serve as “stewards of the mysteries of God.” Consider Titus 1:7 (context is appointing pastors in churches) 7 For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, 8 but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, 9 holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.” 1 Tim 3:1-7 says the same thing under the qualifications of a pastor. A steward (Greek “oikonomos”) is a manager of a household, or in this case the local church. But the church must never come to following the man over following Christ! All praise and honor goes to Christ (the chief Shepherd), not His under shepherds. As a pastor, I want no praise or glory, and I repeat what I so often say, “It doesn’t matter what I say, it only matters what God says.”

1 Corinthians 4:2
A church leader (pastor) must be faithful in what he does. Again Titus 1:7-9 and 1 Timothy 3:1-7 are very instructive. Never accepting praise or honor, but always passing it to Christ. It makes absolutely no difference how much human wisdom, how eloquent, how impressive in stature the man is (recall 1 Corinthians 2:1-5). What does matter is how faithful he is; true to the entire Word of God in thought, words, deeds.

1 Corinthians 4:3-4
Paul was not concerned about their “evaluation” of him…good or bad. Obviously they were fighting over their leaders and which was the best, so some thought Paul was the best and some couldn’t stand him (we see evidence of that all through 2 Corinthians). Paul’s concern was how God would evaluate his work. In fact, Paul wasn’t even concerned about his evaluation of himself! He’s not being arrogant, after all these are the Holy Spirit’s words not Paul’s, right? “ALL Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16). But the point is that the only evaluation that matters is God’s. He is the only one that knows everything, even the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and He is the only 100% fair and righteous Judge. And again, in this section we’re not talking about open sin, but our work for God, whether it is gold, silver, precious stone, or wood, hay, and stubble.

When I was serving in the Navy on that submarine, my supervisor always made me do a self-eval that I submitted to him before he have his official evaluation of my work. I hated doing that. I hadn’t given my life to Christ yet, but even then I didn’t want to sound arrogant but I sure didn’t want to underrate myself either!

Paul was not concerned about his self evaluation. It would mean nothing. God doesn’t use our self-evaluations like my Navy supervisor did. It makes no difference to God what we, or anyone else thinks about us. It’s all about what He knows, and He knows everything!

1 Corinthians 4:5
Based upon that understanding, don’t evaluate whether your church leader’s ministry is gold, silver, precious stone, or wood, hay, and stubble. You simply cannot know. You can know if he is in open sin and that must be dealt with carefully (1 Timothy 5:17-20), but other than that, don’t pass judgment. Judgment will be passed when the Lord returns. He knows better than any of us anyway. He will not only reveal any hidden sin, He will reveal the motives of the heart.


CONCLUSION:

READ 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 again

There is a difference between judging (evaluating) someone’s work in the Lord…which we are not qualified to do…and evaluating good and evil and passing judgment upon sin, which we are all called to do.

It is only God’s evaluation of us that will matter. God will judge how we have used this life as believers one day…whether we served Him or ourselves. He will separate the gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay, and stubble. He will reveal hidden darkness, and motives of our hearts. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care…we should! His judgment of us will matter greatly to us when it happens. We must now strive to be holy and hard at work according to His purposes so that His judgment will be something to look forward to.