Armchair gods

 This week is on James 4:11-12:

Do not speak against one another, brothers and sisters. He who speaks against a fellow believer or judges a fellow believer speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but its judge. But there is only one who is lawgiver and judge—the one who is able to save and destroy. On the other hand, who are you to judge your neighbor?

 James, here, is talking about conflict in the church. People were denouncing each other based on their failures, rather than trying to help each other in love to do better. People were speaking against each other, rather than for each other.

Why not speak against someone who is doing wrong? It's truth, right? The problem is that it takes us out of the mode of trying to live the way we are supposed to, so that we can sit on our DIY throne of righteousness and pass judgment on the people who are trying to do the right thing. 

We become like armchair quarterbacks, or like the guy who stands around drinking coffee and telling everyone else what to do when it comes time for teamwork. Are we doing the things? Or are we putting ourselves in a self-appointed position of superiority and avoiding the work itself?

That's not to say we shouldn't speak up when something has gone wrong. If the pastor took you out to the cemetery and tried to rape you, obviously you should speak up. Or if your coworkers are doing something that's driving you crazy, it's perfectly fine to vent about how upset you are by it. 

But when you're saying that the person who has failed is of less value than someone who has not, that's where the line gets crossed. It's one thing to say someone has failed, and another to say they're a terrible human being because of it.

And that's kind of what James is getting at. We shouldn't be warning everyone else about all of the other failures in church. It's not our job to stand there drinking coffee and commenting on what needs to be done while everyone else is working. Instead we should be working alongside of them.

God will worry about whether we are living properly or not. Only he is qualified to make the call on how well people are doing it. Who are we to make a judgment call about our fellow Christians or to speak condemningly of them? Are our words helping? Or are we the guy standing in everyone's way with a cup of coffee, proving to himself that he's the most qualified of us all?

If you have something negative to say about someone, examine your heart first. Are your words going to protect someone? Are they going to help the person who is failing? Are you willing to pay the price of the failure you are describing? What is your heart feeling towards the person who has failed? Love? Contempt? Hatred? Your thoughts should be turning inward when you find yourself in that situation. You should be positioned alongside the person, not above them in judgment.

So don't speak against each other. Don't keep a running commentary about who needs to do what. Instead, focus on helping others to succeed, standing in the gap and absorbing the costs of their sin. Don't just watch the game. Join the team and play it.