Three judgments, one role

 This week's verses are 1 Corinthians 4:1-6:

One should think about us this way—as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Now what is sought in stewards is that one be found faithful. So for me, it is a minor matter that I am judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not acquitted because of this. The one who judges me is the Lord. So then, do not judge anything before the time. Wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the motives of hearts. Then each will receive recognition from God.

I have applied these things to myself and Apollos because of you, brothers and sisters, so that through us you may learn “not to go beyond what is written,” so that none of you will be puffed up in favor of the one against the other.  

These verses are ones Paul wrote to address division in the Corinthian church. Much like nowadays, there were people who were connoisseurs of controversy, who were passionate about deciding who was better than whom, who had the better claim to authority, whose doctrine was the most pure, etc. So there were some people who were proud of being against Paul, and others who were proud of being against another church leader named Apollos. 

It was like a bunch of out of shape sports fans looking down on each other for supporting a different team. It looks ridiculous. Or at least it seems that way when it's not you wearing the overpriced jersey, defending other people's performance as if it were your own.

And that's kind of Paul's first point: We should be focused on playing the game, not getting in parking lot rumbles over whose team is better. We're servants of God. Our role is to be faithful in playing the game according to his rules and instructions. Faithfulness is our one job qualification. Would you rather hire the guy who has a long list of credentials but who never shows up to work? Or the guy who doesn't have much, but he'll stick to the job until it's done? Paul is saying our role is to be the guy who does his job.

He then gets into the tangle of judgments that are going on, both the ones which are unjust, and the one which is just. The two unjust judgments are self-judgment and judgment of others. The only just judgment is the judgment of God, which we won't see till the end.

When Paul talks about self-judgment, he doesn't mean that he is wrong to pay attention to his actions. He's not living like a wild animal. What he's talking about is rating himself on a scale of righteousness based on his actions. He's talking about deciding on his own whether he's a good person or a bad person.

Paul is definitely examining himself. He says he's not aware of any outstanding issues, but that it doesn't mean that none exist. That's what a lack of judgment looks like. He is not declaring himself guilty or innocent based on the evidence, because he knows the evidence is incomplete and that only God can judge based on the whole truth.

And so if it's bad to judge ourselves, how much more bad must it be to judge others, about whom we know even less than we know about ourselves? I can't tell you how many times someone (often me) has been angry with someone because of motives they decided that person had. None of us can read minds! 

None of us know the circumstances, or the trustworthiness of rumors, or even if we ourselves have the whole picture. And that's just talking about people we know! To form that strong of an opinion about someone based on the Internet, or the bubbled social media feed we get, or the sensationalist news, is just complete craziness. 

We can't possibly know if the things we're upset about, or proud of, even happened, let alone the circumstances, or what a person was thinking at the time, or even the state of their heart and relationship to Jesus. We know nothing. Would you want your court case for a capital crime to be decided by people who knew nothing?

But that's not to say that we shouldn't address sin, and judge in the sense of personal or church hygiene. If someone is sick, we should help them to get well. If someone is endangered we should help them to get to safety. That's a whole different thing than being a self-appointed crusader against evil. Evil is people like you.

Instead, we should let God judge. He's going to do it anyway, and only he will get the details of the case right. Everything will get taken care of. He doesn't need our help. He hasn't given us the right to do his job for him. That role is eternally his.

Paul says he takes that knowledge into account when dealing with the unfair accusations against him, and against Apollos. He just sticks to his job of being a caretaker of what God has entrusted him with. He works on being faithful and tells us to do the same. Because otherwise we'll get puffed up like sports fans, and get in fights and do stupid things, all for the sake of putting our righteousness in someone other than Christ.