Response: Absolutely no one. But God is. I'm just someone who can read, believe, think, understand, discern, and affirm out loud.
NEXT!
(Proverbs 21:22)
19 February 2013
"Who are you to judge?" dodge (NEXT! #31)
by Dan Phillips
Challenge: Who are you to judge [insert actions or words here]?
Response: Absolutely no one. But God is. I'm just someone who can read, believe, think, understand, discern, and affirm out loud.
Response: Absolutely no one. But God is. I'm just someone who can read, believe, think, understand, discern, and affirm out loud.
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19 comments:
I wonder if the challenger is aware that he is making the judgment that you are unworthy to pass a judgment on said challenge.
That's good Dan. Really good.
My Dad was one of my High School math teachers. Being a teacher he was often confronted with "Why'd you fail me on that exam?".
Pretty much without exception he'd respond with something like "I didn't fail you, I didn't even write the test. I just added it all up at the end."
It's not hardly judging to say that certain lifestyles/attitudes/ actions are ungodly and wrong. Nor even that persistence in those things demonstrate the state of ones soul.
But we don't always like to be reminded that it's all been written down so anyone with eyes can mark certain parts of our tests, do we?
I wonder what reaction we would get if we met every request for affirmation with "Sorry, but we're not supposed to judge."
First thought: Nice post, Amos.
Second thought: This puts the matter squarely where it belongs. I'm not the one 'judging', God is. I'm merely agreeing with the judgment/standards He has already declared. Your problem isn't with me being 'intolerant', it's with God being holy.
Third thought: This post summarizes why Satan created the Emerg* church. The only possible counter is to pretend that God's Word is somehow so fuzzy and unclear that it can't be understood. That obviously won't do anything at the final judgment, but it sure helps people feel better about their sin when they get the seal of approval from a 'church'.
My really-really short NEXT! on this is to shrug and say, "Someone who can read."
Did you get my email, Trog?
"There is a sense in which we are not to judge men; but there is another sense in which he would be an arrant fool who did not constantly exercise his judgment upon men." CHS
Can I at least judge you for your terrible taste in television, Dan?
Sure; why should you be the exception?
"Who are you to judge?"
Oh, why, is that wrong?
Ooh, RFB. I LIKE it. Very much in the spirit of this series. Excellent.
Memorizing Philippians with the Little Grasshoppers, brings to mind 1:9 and 10,
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ...
Because if you can see what is best, you can see what is NOT best.
But that's not the kind of snappy comeback the situation demands ;D
Julie
Good post. If one says they have no confidence, nor do they care what the Bible says, then, I say, "I "affirm out loud" only to those who believe the Bible as I do.
If you say the Bible is God's Word to us, then let us go and see what it says about any of our judgments together.
2 Things:
1. "...by this time you ought to be teachers...the mature...those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil."
2. With all due respect, it is not just for "those who believe". Jesus Christ is the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, with "All authority in heaven and on earth" and He now "commands ALL MEN everywhere to repent."
NEW READERS: to understand the purpose of the Next! series, click on the word... NEXT. In the post.
Dan
I am a clever person. However, I am a gibbering gibbon in the presence of you and the majority of the frequent fliers in this blog.
Thank you. I am less ignorant for having spent time on this blog.
Sooo...we're calling teaching "judging" now? And if I shouldn't judge, then I shouldn't teach?
Which is really just you telling me to shut up. Got it.
(I think I did that right?)
Can't we just say..."I can't answer because the Bible says not to cast pearls before swine?"
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