judging

There’s something we Christians get wrong too often: we judge those outside the church but often give ourselves a pass.

Paul describes the way it’s supposed to go in 1 Corinthians 5:9-11: “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.”

Instead of lectures on sin or warnings about hell or social punishments like avoidance, Paul says my interaction with sinning unbelievers can be pretty normal. I shouldn’t try to avoid them, he says, or I wouldn’t even be able to go about my daily life. My first desire for those people should be to make my faith look good, to attract them to Jesus. I won’t do that by sermonizing.

On the other hand, when my Christian brothers and sisters sin, Paul says to confront them and if necessary ostracize them. So often my fellow church members continue to flirt with drunkenness and shady business dealings. We can gossip to the point of character assassination. We don’t observe the Sabbath, we sometimes have affairs, we occasionally break the law. And the rest of us often don’t say a thing.

I’m not comfortable yet with the idea of challenging my Christian friends with their sin - it seems very close to being judgmental and could be disruptive. I have to think about that more. But what I can do today is stop judging the pagans. I can instead try to be really likeable to them, to attract them to me and hopefully then to Jesus.