On judging and boasting
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 by Thomas Ling
Scripture James 4:11-17 NLV
Warning against Judging Others
11 Don’t speak evil against each other, my dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize each other and condemn each other, then you are criticizing and condemning God’s law. But you are not a judge who can decide whether the law is right or wrong. Your job is to obey it. 12 God alone, who made the law, can rightly judge among us. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to condemn your neighbor?
Reflection
Q: Why is criticizing others equated with condemning God’s law?
It’s God’s law that points out our sins, in a sense its God’s law that should do the criticizing. When we criticize others by slandering or gossiping we put ourselves in God’s position as judge and we violate God’s commandment to love one another. We are also commanded not to testify falsely against our brothers/sisters. Our disobedience to love shows our disregard for God’s law and therefore ‘condemn’ it by setting ourselves above it.
Scripture:
Warning about Self-Confidence
13 Look here, you people who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” 14 How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. 15 What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” 16 Otherwise you will be boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. 17 Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
Reflection
Our attitude about tomorrow should be that of – “God willing”. God holds our future, we simply can’t and don’t know what tomorrow holds. When we boast about tomorrow and our plans as if we are in control, it shows that we are not depending on and trusting in God completely. Pride might be lurking! Such boasting is in James’ word – evil.
V17 – Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
If we took seriously the definition of sin here, it would mean:
Every time we keep quiet and remain unaffected about evil, injustice, sin, and all that is in contrary to God’s expressed will, we sin.
Every time we refrain from helping when we can, a helpless person in our path, we sin.
If I know what I ought to do, I must do it.
The difference it would make if we take seriously this definition of sin – We’d be all doers of the word and not just hearers only!