Week 12, Day 5: Judged to Be Good Stewards

Today’s Reading:  1 Corinthians 6:1-7:40

Some thoughts from yesterday’s reading…

Any passage that talks about judging, or not judging, draws a lot of attention when it comes to religious discussions.  Recently, when I was called to jury duty, there was a woman who objected to being on the jury because she “was a Christian, and the Bible tells Christians not to judge.”  I believe that this is a misinterpretation of scripture, and yet there are many who believe the Bible condemns any type of judgment on our part.  A passage that can be similarly used to make such an argument is found in 1 Corinthians 4.

Paul, as he addresses the way in which the Corinthian Christians were addressing the teachings of the various evangelists, tells them in verses 1-2 that they as messengers had to be trustworthy.  But, trustworthy to what?  They had to be found trustworthy enough to deliver the message of the gospel to them!  To do that, they had to be beyond reproach.  They had to be beyond corruption.  They had to teach what was revealed by God, regardless of how it might be received by their audiences.  In the midst of establishing the need to be trustworthy, Paul tells the Corinthians that it is a “very small thing to be judged by you…” (1 Corinthians 4:3)

Some may consider Paul’s words to indicate that it was wrong for them to judge him.  But, that is not the subject of his instructions.  Paul is pointing out that he had to be faithful to the revelation of God, even if they didn’t want to accept it as such.  They could judge that Paul’s message was something other than what had been revealed, or they could doubt Paul’s honesty and sincerity in the delivering of the message.  But, in the end, their judgment wouldn’t really mean anything to him.  He was dedicated to teaching the truth because he knew that in the end, it would be  Christ that would be judging him, and it would be that judgment that counted.  How could he teach something contrary to God’s will?

Interestingly enough, Paul stated that he would not even judge himself in this matter.  He said that he could think of nothing against himself, but even in that he could not declare himself to be innocent.  It was not his own judgment against himself that mattered.  It was the judgment that came from the Lord that was of the greatest importance.

The lesson that we can learn from these verses is that we cannot rely upon the judgment of others, or even our own judgment to determine if we are doing and teaching what is right.  Others may judge that we are doing well, or not doing well.  However they may not have enough information to determine that accurately.  Sometimes we rely upon our own judgment, really based upon our own emotions (how we feel) to determine if we are acting correctly or teaching the right things.  But, the answers cannot come from “within ourselves.”  We have to turn to the word of God and allow it to identify what is pure, what is holy, what is right, and what is good.

If we are going to be judged to be good stewards of the mysteries of God, then we must be trustworthy.  We must restrict ourselves to the pure gospel message, neither adding to, or taking away from what God has revealed.  We cannot be influenced to change the gospel message because of those that would think it too harsh, or because we are not converting as many people as we would like.  We must continue to teach what has been revealed, trusting God to provide the increase.