A Digest

The words of God in the New Testament are mostly radical. Radical love, Radical worship, and radical belief in God’s word are some of the concepts discussed. Today I was reading about the fact that we are not to judge others, and in my mind I began to question why we are told “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! 2But [takes] delight in the law of the LORD, And in His law meditates day and night” - Psalm 1:1. How then are we to determine these ones that are ungodly and sequester ourselves from their ungodliness, if we are to by all means interact, showing love, without judging them? What does it mean to judge in the Bible? Well in Matthews 7:1 – 6 Jesus explains through an analogy what judging others look like. If you are doing something wrong, you place judgment when you try to correct others doing the same thing, while you show no sign of change or when you have not corrected your wrong. This makes sense, because how then should you lead when blind, if your eyesight has not been corrected. So judgment in this context amounts to superimposing our beliefs, and not necessarily practice, on others. I mean granted when one walks in the council of the ungodly then he ultimately practices the likes of them, so how then should he point fingers at their wrongs, if he indulges in their ungodly behaviors or practice. I read a commentary from bible gateway, and I like the fact that the commentator compares judging others to usurping the role of God. If God is holy, then He remains the rightful judge of all. However Jesus indicates that should we want to express that attribute of God then we must albeit be in the same position as God himself, be holy. There are numerous ways we can do this, such as offered in Romans 12:2. We can be transformed by the renewal of our mind, notice this does not talk about the mind of others. Romans 14, also describes the law of liberty, that our differences should not be a cause for debate. You should not point a finger at someone who decides to be a vegetarian because you eat everything, and neither should the other fret over others who eat all. The bolt and nut of it all though is that we should not let what we do, cause others to fall. So instead of walking around with a log in my eye and pointing at others who have peck of woods in theirs, I can work on taking mine out and should they need it, lend a hand in taking theirs out as well. We are interconnected in this way, so that instead of eschewing the ungodly we set examples by our love, without indulging in their activities, but working on ourselves. This is definitely parallel to global thinking, where your perspectives only matters when those of others are considered.