I have a mixed relationship with “Judge not, lest you be judged.”
Whenever I hear it my antenna goes up, listening intently for how someone is about to tell me that they don’t have to listen to what the rest of the Bible says about how Christians should act since Jesus tells us we’re not supposed to judge anyone. I typically assume that Paul is about to take a beating.
But every now and then it comes back around on me, and I realize that those are life-giving words–not merely for individuals, but for communities. Here’s my latest struggle with it.
I’ve been questioning the value of certain scholars’ work recently. Not that it’s not scholarly and to the point, but I’ve been made cautious because these Christian scholars who have written at length on forgiveness, reconciliation, and sex have had their own marriages end.
I feel a need to know what happened. I feel a need to know how their lives do or do not reflect what they’ve spoken about with such authority in their books. I find myself hesitating about the value of their work because of the lives that don’t serve as glowing endorsements.
If all goes well, it does begin to dawn on me that I don’t know these people at all, not only do I not know the circumstances behind the writing, but I also do not know the circumstances behind the divorce. There is no context of community within which I might wrestle with them, listen to them, and have sufficient exposure to who they are that their personal “witness” begins to regain (or to lose) its credibility.
As the thought process continues, I realize that I have friends who are divorced and remarried, and that in the context of a relationship where I know them, at times worship with them, and otherwise spend time in community with them, I never hear them differently due to their marital status.
I listen to them, honor them, and respect them because we have built a relationship of trust even though both our lives are marked with decisions that we and the other might regard as unwise or unholy.
And so I come full circle to the initial impulse to judge these divorcees who should have been able to avoid it if they were living according to what they wrote in their books. And I am reminded of the stern warning: do not judge, lest you be judged.
And sometimes, just sometimes, I am even able to stop there and let it all go. But if not, there’s always the threat that someone might turn the tables on me and ask me how well I’m doing by the standards I set in my own writing. If I dog these folks for lives that imperfectly mirror the beauty of the gospel as they have been able to see it and articulate it in writing, what will become of me when someone uses my own writing as the canon by which my own life is judged?
I once read a pastor’s narrative in which he was reflecting on his call, especially preaching. He reflected on people calling the preacher a hypocrite for what he says in the pulpit in juxtaposition to the pastor’s imperfect life. But his own feeling was that it was in the pulpit he was his truest self.
I think those of us who write about biblical and theological things can resonate with that. Or, at least, with the idea that in our writing we see more clearly than we might reflect in our everyday lives where old patterns and powers overwhelm us again and again. The failure of the life to live up to the text is not simply the reality of our lives stacked up against the Jesus of the Bible, it’s the reality of our lives when stacked up against the Jesus upon whose ways we reflect in our books.
We will continue to fall short. We will continue to need grace.
And, I think we’re still free to read each other’s books.
James, in his truthful but somewhat less-than-encouraging way says “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (3:1). Indeed the standard is higher for those that teach, preach, and lead.
I think keeping out of hypocrisy relies on constant reflection on just how important it is to be who you say others ought to be– and to do it with humility. As a student, I can research, study, and write for hours, but if I act like that is my time with God, I’m toast! Nothing sinks into my heart and I find myself like the person in James 1:23-24, with hypocrisy waiting close at hand. I can only imagine how great that temptation is for professional theologians/scholars who may seem to spend every waking moment doing these things.
Great reflections.
Hmmm,
it seems clear enough that even someone who is leading a horrible life is capable of giving good advice from time to time.
Neal Stephenson once said something about hypocrisy being the only sin left for modern people. Since many don’t believe in firm ethical rules, the only way to judge someone else is by her or his internal consistency. A sad state of affairs.
If I wrote about Jesus, Paul, the NT, or Scripture in any way and what came out did not challenge my own life and make my shortcomings clear (even though I despise them), it is then I would question my scholarship.
Hear me good! That was excellen,t Dr. Kirk. Thank you.
Yeah, I immediately went to that James passage also. But for me it is more than that. It has to do with breakdown of theory and practice. It is really difficult for me to read missional books from people who aren’t pastors, and like the above example, I’m sure that } wouldn’t read these marriage/sex books. Not because I’m juding them, but b/c some essential part of the gospel was missing from their theology or life. I’m not saying we break fellowship b/c love covers a multitude of sinsn
If I were only to write on those things which I had mastered in my life, it would be a very short book. If I were only to preach on those things which I lived out with perfect consistently, my range of sermon topics would be approaching nil.
Writing is like preaching, and preaching is like singing songs or reading Scripture or pronouncing the benediction in church, in this way: they are all acts of faith and hope, even as much as they are acts of love. By faith I preach the word, and by faith I seek to live it out in the daily grind of real life, just as by faith the congregation hears the word and seeks to live it out in their lives. Hypocrisy is not speaking only what I consistently live, and avoiding hypocrisy does not demand that I live a perfect life.
And now in church on Sunday morning, and in the author’s study, there remains faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.
I think there is a huge gap between mastery and failure. It is a question of maturity and progrssion, of moving forward and being honest about where you are. I am all for honesty in pupit and helping people grow even in the midst of failure.
I guess I’m unwilling to give up on character in the academy and pastorate (but not in the moralizing sense).
geoff holsclaw
Sure, Geoff, you’re right – there’s quite a spectrum of possibilities between perfect consistency and consistent imperfection, and one would expect those who preach and teach to be somewhere in the middle, moving toward the one and away from the other. But still, we must allow our pastors and teachers to be imperfect. And, to push this even as hard as Daniel does, when a major failure happens, that does not mean that what they have preached and taught is wrong. I think of Paul’s words in Phil 1, that even those who preach the gospel with wrong motives can still be preaching the true gospel.
It does seem much easier to judge those with whom we have no face-to-face relationship. As the daughter of divorced parents, I know how complex such issues can be and also how people are quick to judge from “the outside,” even if they have good intentions and wish to determine whether the divorce is “biblical” (however they choose to define the term).
In general (there are, of course, exceptions), I think healthy or helpful “judging” of another Christian’s life and actions can only come from someone who is actually involved in that Christian’s life. While perhaps those who write books or who have chosen to be a public figure or leader may be accountable to a brother audience, I think the average Christian’s issues are not every other Christian’s business. In my opinion, if I have issues with greed or covetousness, is is not appropriate for any Christian to come and rebuke me – it is the role of those Christians who are involved in my life and can actually call themselves my friends. They are most qualified to rebuke me from the “inside.” Again, I view this as a general principle, not a hard-and-fast rule. In any case, I think it better to suspend judgment if the majority of the facts are not known.
I think it is also important to note that people change over time (sometimes for the worse and sometimes for the better). A person’s folly later on in life does not necessarily negate the value of their wise words at an earlier time.
P.S. I meant “broader audience,” in the second paragraph, not “brother.”
I whole heartedly agree with Rebekah above.
but to michael’s point above that even with moral failing that this doesn’t invalid someone’s teaching. well, for me, i’m unwilling to think of biblical/pastoral/theological teaching as merely the transferal of information, but rather that truth is connected to a way and a life, just that theology and the teaching or writing of it shouldn’t lead to a disconnect from one’s teaching and life, and if it does then I can’t help but think there might be something missing in the teach that will lead me astray.
but I also think this issue should also be considers with the broader view of the Christian publishing industry and commercialization of big name writers and speakers to whom (back to Rebekah’s point) we have little to no real relationship.
Geoff, I’m with you on teaching as not merely being the transfer of information, that truth is connected to a way and a life (reminds me of something John’s Jesus says about himself…). I hope that came through in my initial description of teaching and preaching and writing as acts of faith and hope and love. I hope even more that this actually comes through in my own life.
But then I run into the passage I noted in Phil 1, where Paul talks about people who “preach the gospel out of envy and rivalry” and “selfish ambition” (sounds like a real disconnect between what they teach and how they live), yet Paul concludes: “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” Or I come across Matthew 23, where, as the intro to Jesus castigating the Pharisees for (among other things) hypocrisy, he says, “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” And these and other biblical texts make me wonder if my idealism of complete integrity sometimes runs ahead of a necessary realism or even a legitimate pragmatism. I truly don’t know how to make sense of all this, except that I’m pretty sure the ideal is, as you say, the full integration of life and teaching – allowing for growth in the teacher as much as in the students.
Seems like we’re pulled between two ideas of the pastorate. It seems like some have an almost sacramental view of the pastorate where it is the position of the person in question not the personality. I think this is a helpful idea. I think of the high priest who unwittingly prophesies? Jesus’ death for Israel. Or there was the Donatist controversy in which some Christians thought the sacraments and preaching of these priests who folded under persecution were invalid. Augustine went with the sacramental view.
Of course I want my pastor to speak with personal integrity, but as someone who has preached a bit, I know that my sermon addresses my congregation, and I am a part of that congregation.
Two cents