How Should Christians Judge?

Well, brethren, thinking back to the Feast of Tabernacles, again, it's a wonderful time. It's a time to get together. It's a time to worship God. It's a time to see some people that maybe we haven't seen for quite a while.

Joy and I were having a meal this year at the Feast with someone that, you know, we had met previously along the way. It was really nice to get together with them, and it's not only seeing old friends. It's also making new friends. But in this case, we were having a meal with someone that we'd met along the way. And the child of the other family was really excited. You know, they were just beaming and happy. He had just bought a souvenir, and he was extremely happy with his purchase. You know, it's like getting a new car for an adult or something. He was just really happy. The father had mentioned that the child spent his entire 2T budget, his entire second-tieth budget, you know, to buy this souvenir. And immediately, you know, as a knee-jerk reaction, the child said, Don't judge me! Don't judge me!

Our society tends to be very non-judgmental. You know, I'm okay. You know, you're okay. No problem. You know, don't judge me. And I won't judge you. Said differently, I came across a quote that said, Don't someone just... Don't... Excuse me. Don't judge someone just because they sin differently than you do.

And I found that one on the internet from Pinterest. You know, www.pinterest, you know, a whole lot of other things behind it. In other words, we all have our problems. You know, you leave me alone. You know, don't bug me. I won't bug you. And you know, peace and happiness will all go our ways.

What the feast this year, there were many comparisons to our society today to the society of ancient Corinth. There's the ancient first century Corinth. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians, the fifth chapter. We'll see a problem that the Apostle Paul dealt with with the city of Corinth. As I say, there were comparisons made between this year, you know, as modern society, I should say, as well as Corinth in the first century AD. 1 Corinthians 5, and I'll start reading in verse 1, Paul says it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. And such sexual immorality is not even named among the Gentiles that a man should have his father's wife. And you are puffed up. Another word for that is arrogant. Puffed up and have not rather mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from you. So here we have the Apostle Paul writing this letter, this corrective letter to the church at Corinth. And the church of Corinth, you know, they were very tolerant. They were very accepting, you know, yeah, we've got this sinner among us. And you know, we can accept him, you know, aren't we? You know, aren't we very accommodating? Look how spiritual we are. We're not judgmental, you know, we're filled with love. Dropping down to verse 6, Paul says, your glory is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? The church not only accepted the person, they were glorying, you know, look how tolerant we are. Look how wonderful we are that we can accept this sinner and he can be among us. Well, brethren, that leads us to a question, leads us to a few questions.

Should a Christian judge?

Should a Christian judge? Society around us says, no, you know, I'm okay, you're okay, don't judge me, I won't judge you. Just like that small child said, you know, don't judge me, because I bought something, no, don't judge me. We need to be careful that society doesn't inadvertently rub off upon us.

God sent us in the church to make us difference for the world, or to the world, not to bring the world and have it make a difference for us. So again, I ask the question, should a Christian judge?

If so, why should a Christian judge? Or how should a Christian judge?

And what does judging have to do with unity?

Why should we judge? How should we judge? And what does judging have to do with unity? Let's turn back to Matthew 7, Matthew 7, verses 1-5, which again, should be, they should be, quite likely is very familiar to most of us here in the room. It's the passage that people turn to to say, well, you know, we're not supposed to judge, you know, it says so in the Bible, you know, don't judge. So we'll look at a scripture people use to say that, you know, we should not judge. Matthew 7, and I'll start reading in verse 1, it says, judge not that you be not judged. And I've got a little marginal rendering in my, in my Nelson's personal study Bible. The word for judge would be condemn. In other words, condemn not that you not be condemned. In verse 2, for with what judgment, again, with what condemnation, continuing, excuse me, continuing on that you judge, you will be judged. And with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you. So why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck out of your eye and look, a plank is in your own eye, hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to move, remove the speck out of your brother's eye.

So here's the passage that people use saying, don't judge, you know, don't judge. We're not supposed to be judging one another.

As I mentioned, there's this marginal reference in my Bible, and the word judge is actually the word condemn, or would be better translated as condemn. And actually the publisher of the Bible, you know, Nelson's Press or Nelson's Company, they've got this one right. They are correct. The word for judge comes from Strongs 2919. The word would be transliterated, crino, k-r-i-n-o. And it can mean to judge, but it also means to condemn, to punish. So what this is talking about here is judging, judging is looking at facts and drawing a conclusion, making a decision, condemning, actually serving as the judge, you know, the jailer, and the executioner. That has to do with punishment. And again, I think we all know that we should not condemn a person. We should not condemn anybody. But we certainly can judge actions. We can do that, and we should do that. We're not to judge how a person stands with God or how God looks at a person. That's between a person and God. And, you know, we do not know motives. We do not know hearts. God does know motives, and He does know hearts. So He can judge. He can condemn if so desires. Some commentaries, it's kind of interesting, say that this particular scripture is very misunderstood and misapplied. And I would go along with that, with what I just read here, as far as it doesn't say don't judge. It says don't condemn. There's a website, Bible.org, talking about this particular passage, Matthew 7, verses 1 to 5, where it says, no sentence in the Bible is more familiar, more misunderstood, and more misapplied than this passage that we just read. No sentence is more familiar, more misunderstood, and more misapplied.

Actually, I mentioned, you know, I talked about the Greek for the word judge. You don't even have to look at the Greek for the word judge. You don't have to look at, you know, let's say grammar translations. Just look at the content. We'll see that judging, actually the chapter is saying to judge rather than to not judge. Read verse 6, where it says, don't give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before a swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. So here again, in order to do this, you know, do not give what is holy to the dogs, you have to make a judgment. You have to make a decision. Dropping down into verse 15, it says, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. You need to make a judgment in order to know by fruits.

And then dropping down into verse 20, essentially the same thing, it says, therefore by their fruits you shall know them. So it does say that we need to make judgments. The only way we're going to know by fruits is if we look at the facts, reach a conclusion, and then make a judgment. So this chapter is actually saying to judge. It's not saying to not judge. But now it also says that in order to help others, we need to work on our problems. You know, if we have a beam in our eye, I think of, you know, a cartoon character, you know, like some fellow, you know, a big beam in his eye. I'm sure that this is humorous back then. The right person can draw this up and it'd be humorous today. You know, in order that you see someone has a little problem and you've got a great big giant problem and you're going to try and help them, no, it doesn't really work that way. But what this, again, what this passage is saying that, you know, we need to work on ourselves to help others, but the Christian, it doesn't say that Christians should not judge. It says just the opposite, that we should judge, but we should not condemn. So, brethren, then, how should Christians judge? And I'm going to go through a series of points relatively quickly.

Hopefully not too quickly. So, how should Christians judge? Turn to John the seventh chapter.

John the seventh chapter, and I'll read verse 24.

John 7 and verse 24, where Christ gives us instructions.

And again, on how to judge, this could be a sermon all by itself, but as I mentioned, I'm going to move rapidly or rather rapidly through this. John 7 and verse 24, it's that Christ is saying, and again, this red letter is in my Bible, do not judge according to appearance. In other words, what things look like. Judge with righteous judgment. So, he tells us to judge. Christ is saying, you will judge, you should judge. And he tells us how to do it with righteous judgment. And again, righteous judgment, I could talk a long time on righteous judgment, but I'm not going to. I'm just going to leave that phrase where it is. He wants us, Christ wants us to judge. And again, just to say as a simple example, we see a person robbing a bank. We can look at this and say, he's a bank robber, or she's a bank robber, you know, whatever the case may be. That's making a judgment.

It's that we don't know why the person is robbing the bank. We don't know the motives of the person. We don't know the cause of their actions. But we do know that the person is a bank robber. You know, that's a judgment. That's, I would say, a righteous judgment, because I mean, you can see it with your own eyes. You can see what is happening. Likewise, in judging, we should not show partiality.

Sometimes we tend to be accommodating, you know, with say, of our friends, or maybe our children. You know, maybe if it's your child robbing the bank, well, you know, he's really a good boy, or she's really a good girl, you know, whichever the case may be. But, you know, they've got problems now. No, we shouldn't be accommodating. We should have righteous judgment.

I'm not going to turn there, but in Isaiah 11, Isaiah 11, which is a scripture we hear quite often at the feast, it talks about Jesus Christ judging in the millennium. And it says, and I think this will be familiar to a lot of you, he's not going to judge after the sight of his eyes or the hearing of his ears. He's going to judge righteous judgment. So Christ tells us to judge, and he tells us to judge righteously. So then, leaving that, why should we judge?

Why should we judge? Since we're instructed to judge, why should we judge? Well, we judge to become more Christ-like. This is one of the ways that we can become more Christ-like.

We are told, again, back at the Feast of Tabernacles, in other times, we're going to be kings and priests in the Kingdom of God, specifically in the millennium here upon the earth. Turn to 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6. And we'll talk about our role in judging. 1 Corinthians 6, starting in verse 1.

Paul is writing again about another problem. He says, Dear any of you, having a matter against another, go to the law before the unrighteous and not before the saints. Do you not know the saints will judge the world? Talking about, you know, the millennium?

And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? So again, we're supposed to judge. Do you not know that we shall judge angels?

How much more things that pertain to this life? So we're going to be judges in the future. We're going to be kings. We're going to be priests. We're going to make decisions. Where are we going to learn that? When are we going to learn that? I was going to be at the time, you know, on the job training? Or are we preparing now to be judges then, to learn to make decisions? As I mentioned, we're going to be kings and priests in the millennium, and one of the reasons we need to learn to judge now is so that we will be prepared. Also, we're supposed to judge ourselves. Turn to 2 Corinthians, the 13th chapter. 2 Corinthians, the 13th chapter. And I'll just read one verse there. That's verse 5. Now, obviously, we know that before the Passover, which is coming up in seven weeks or so, we know that we need to test ourselves and examine ourselves before the Passover. But that's not the only time of the year that we need to do this. It's not just a once-per-year activity. This is something that should go on throughout the year. 1 Corinthians 13, verse 5, just breaking into the context. It says, examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Prove yourselves. Do you not know yourself that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you are disqualifying? So we need to judge ourselves. We need to look at ourselves. We need to look at situations. We need to draw conclusions, and we need to make right judgments and righteous judgments. Again, not being overly critical, not being fault-finding, so to speak, but not making excuses for ourselves either. We need to judge righteous judgment. We need to discern both good and bad actions in ourselves, as well as others are concerned as appropriate.

I'm going to leave the subject of judging for a minute and shift gears and talk about unity. I mentioned earlier that, you know, what does judging have to do with unity? Well, it does actually have something to do with unity. I'm going to start off with a couple definitions. First, the definition of unity. Unity is a oneness of mind, of feeling, as among a number of persons, concord, harmony, or agreement. That's from dictionary.com. In other words, said a little bit differently, it's to get along with one another, to work toward shared goals, common goals, to have harmony, to work together in peace. And then another word similar to uniformity, but not exactly like it is uniformity. Uniformity, and again from dictionary.com, the state or quality of being uniform, state of quality of being uniform, overall sameness, being homogeneous, being regular, or having regularity. In other words, again said differently, in my words, doing or all believing the same thing. So there's a difference between spiritual unity and doctrinal unity. Spiritual unity is all coming together and getting along. Doctrinal unity would be everybody believing the same thing.

And don't get me wrong, I think for the most part we do believe the same things.

Almost, almost, and I'll come back to that. Turn to Ephesians the fourth chapter.

Ephesians the fourth chapter.

And I'll start reading in verse one. Ephesians the fourth chapter, where the Apostle Paul says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to have a walk worthy of the calling which you were called. So Paul is beseeching the Christians who are at Ephesus, and then dropping down to verse three, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, the unity of the Spirit. So this is something that we have, because this is something that we can keep.

In other words, we're keeping it. It's not something that we're striving to achieve. We're keeping it because we already have the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Again, unity, working all together in peace and in harmony, as opposed to dropping down into verse 13.

Verse 13, where it says, till we all come to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullest of Christ. So this is doctrinal unity, all believing the same way. And this is something that we are striving to do. We all want to believe the same thing, but we're not all there yet. We're just not all there yet.

Just think again, back as far as the spiritual unity is concerned, when you first start coming to church, you know, whenever that was, whether you're first, second, third, or, you know, whatever generation Christian, when you first start coming to church, and this was great, we wanted to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We wanted to fit in. We wanted to, you know, be a part of what was going on. You know, like the church in Acts 2, you know, they were all together in one accord in one place. That was a great time. Well, there's also the church at Ephesus that's mentioned in the book of Revelation. And it talks about that you had love, you know, but they lost their first love. They lost some of their spiritual unity. We have to learn from them. We have to learn from their example. And then likewise, likewise, as far as striving for unity of doctrine, striving for that, this is something we need to aspire to, we need to work on, and we need to, you know, put some effort into. Again, I mentioned, you know, wouldn't it be nice if we all believe the same thing? And you're probably thinking, well, we all do believe the same thing, don't we? And I just said, for the most part, we do. I'm not sure about, you know, a lot of people, but I think I can make the statement here, you know, a lot of people sitting in front of me don't know you that well. But I would have guessed that no two families keep the Sabbath the same way. Now, we all keep the Sabbath. You know, there's no question about that. But some of us do this, some of it would never do that. You know, I think we all have our individuals, you know, what does the Sabbath mean to us? And, you know, how do we keep that? Now, we sort of are unified in this, if we all keep the Sabbath, but I say, I think we all have different activities of what we do or what we don't do. The Apostle Paul said that, you know, we know in part. We know in part. He also said we know we see through a glass darkly. And we all see through that glass a little bit differently. He says we know in part, and just think if the Apostle Paul only knew in part, where does that leave us? You know, we need to learn more, we need to have more knowledge, but it's more than knowledge. It's getting along, it's working together. Turn to, well, hold your finger in Ephesians, and to first turn to the 1st Corinthians, the 8th chapter, and I'll read the first couple verses.

1st Corinthians, the 8th chapter, the first couple of verses.

Paul is saying, now concerning things offered to idols, we know that we all have knowledge, and we all know things. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. Now, where does knowledge puffs up? It gives us a big head. You know, as we read earlier in Corinthians, when they were puffed up about their judgment, it gives us a big head. But is it helpful? Does it help someone else? Does it mean, well, I know something, and you don't know something? And then it goes on and says, but love edifies. Love builds up other people, not ourselves, but it builds up others. And then in verse 2, it says, if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing as yet he ought to know. Again, this is the Apostle Paul saying that, and if he didn't know what he needed to know, what about us? You know, how much do we know?

Again, there's an old saying that I don't remember why I first came across this, but we don't know what we don't know. It's like looking at an iceberg, you know, you can see part of the iceberg, and you know there's something under the water. But how much? You know, you don't really know, unless you can somehow get in the water and, you know, take a peek. We don't know what we don't know. I have a quotation, actually several quotations that I'm going to read from Mr. Larry Walker. Mr. Larry Walker is a retired church pastor. He's an author of several articles. Maybe you remember reading some of his articles? Maybe not, but in any case, he did a fair amount of writing. He taught at ABC. I have a quote from him that appeared in the journal, and actually it appeared in the ministerial journal, and this is a publication that is sent out to the ministry. And this particular issue of the journal came from June 14th, 2013. The title of the article by Mr. Walker is Maintaining Spiritual Unity, and it's where I got the idea, you know, for this section. It says, the point is, and this is quoting now, the point is common knowledge, you know, common doctrine, or doctoral uniformity should not be considered as the basis of spiritual unity for several reasons. Since our knowledge is partial and incomplete, again, as we read in 1 Corinthians 8, you know, we don't know what we don't know, our knowledge is partial and incomplete. Attempting to build on an unfinished foundation would not be a wise approach.

Furthermore, it would be naive to assume that everyone understands everything the same way and agrees with everyone on everything. We all recall the different stages in life. We have different starting points. We grow at different rates. It would be foolish, as he said, to assume that everyone, it'd be naive, to assume that everyone understands everything the same way and agrees with everyone on everything. Actually, to illustrate that, Joy and I have been married for many years. And I would like to say... I haven't got to the punchline yet! What's going on?

Anyway, we've been married for many years, and I would like to say that we agree on everything all the time. I'd really like to say that. But as you can tell, we don't.

I'm not sure about the Weckerleys. Actually, I am sure about the Weckerleys.

People just don't agree on everything all the time. Now, sometimes you'll hear somebody, well, we have a wonderful marriage, and we never agree, never disagree on anything, we're always in harmony. I'll come back to a quote that Mr. Walker had regarding that.

Again, it'd be nice to agree on everything. That's doctrinal unity. But it doesn't work out that way. Those of you who are parents, do your children agree with you? Just think about that. But you love them. Certainly you love them. I love joy. Mr. Weckerley loves his wife. Whether they agree or not, they love each other. And that's, love is the glue that does hold us together. So continue to quote from Mr. Walker. He goes on to say, it has been said that if two people agree on everything, at least one of them is not thinking. It's true. It's true. And he's not the only person that I've either read or heard say that. I actually heard someone say from the lectern, and I've heard a reference to somebody else, don't believe everything you hear from up here, you know, in Sabbath services. Don't just believe it because somebody says it. Am I saying don't believe me? Yeah, I will say that. Don't believe me, as Mr. Armstrong used to say, don't believe me, believe what's in your Bible.

Think about what I'm saying. Think about what you hear from other people who are up here talking. Think about that. Think about how it's in the Bible, how it reflects what's in the Bible. Think about your understanding. And then either yes, accept it. Or if not, you know, you still may have questions. Still may have questions. If you do, you can, you know, question the speaker, or you can, you know, express your question some other way. The thing that you don't do is go to your neighbor and say, do you realize what he said? You know, and start talking. You don't, you don't start gossiping. You don't start, you know, causing division or problems. There's a way to handle things, you know, if there is not agreement. So again, it says if two people agree on everything, you know, and all that you hear, one of them is not thinking. Continuing on, it says if common belief, you know, doctrinal unity, is the only thing that unites us when inevitable disagreements arise, the basis of such unity no longer exists. In other words, if we base our relationship on our knowledge, we're going to have some different knowledge along the way. And all of a sudden, the basis for unity is gone. You know, the glue that holds us together is God's Holy Spirit. It's love for one another. It's not what we know. Although obviously, we do have a lot of things in common as far as knowledge is concerned. You know, if anyone's here and doesn't believe in the Sabbath, well, they wouldn't be here. You know, they would be somewhere else. So we are united by more than common belief. We need to be united, and we need to be united, by more than common belief. Continuing on, the quote from Mr. Walkry says, the key to happy, successful marriages and families is not total agreement or uniformity. Again, a bunch of yellow pencils all lined up. It's not agreement or uniformity. It's mutual love and respect.

Concentrating on areas of commonality and agreement, and working through areas of differences and disagreement. And then finally from Mr. Walkry says, we are a spiritual family whose unity is based on love for God and each other, not just details of doctrinal agreement. I'll read that again. We are a spiritual family whose unity is based on love for God and for each other, not just the details of doctrinal agreement. Ephesians the fourth chapter, he said, hold your finger there and sure enough I didn't. So Ephesians the fourth chapter, I'll drop down to verse 15.

I'll read verses 15 and 16.

Ephesians 4, 15, it says, and I'm breaking into the context, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things in the hand who is the head, Jesus Christ. And verse 16, from whom the whole body, that's the church, joined in it together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. So unity has to do with all of us working together. It says every part has a function. Every part has a role. You know, whether a senior citizen, whether a child, whether in between, we all have a role. We all have a part to play. We've all been called for a purpose.

So I'll ask the question again, well, what does that have to do with judging? Which is how I, where I started before I got into this. What does that have to do with judging? Well, turn to Romans the 14th chapter. Romans the 14th chapter. We'll spend a fair amount of time in Romans 14, and we'll see what it has to do with judging. Actually, Romans 14 is a really good example from the Apostle Paul of what Christ was talking about in Matthew 7, when Christ said, you know, condemn not, lest you be condemned. It's also a good example as far as unity and uniformity, or in the case of Romans 14, a lack of uniformity, of different people doing things different.

We need to have a right approach towards differences that exist between us. So Romans 14, and I'll start reading in verse 1. Actually, before I start reading, I want to keep in mind the situation of the congregation of Rome. It was made up of Jewish people. It was made up of Gentiles. And as you read to the book of Romans, you can see there's a fair amount of tension between these two groups. They have their problems getting along one with another.

Now with that, Romans 14 verse 1, it says, receive one who is weak. And I'm just going to stop right there and look at the word receive. That's really a very nice word. It's a term of inclusion. It's not exclusion. It's not rejecting somebody. It's receiving somebody. Accept them, a term of inclusion.

Now interestingly enough, commentators spend a lot of time talking about this particular verse and trying to figure out, well, who are the strong and who are the weak? Are the strong people the Jews and the weak are the Gentiles? Or rather, the strong ones the Gentiles and the weak are the Jews that are stuck in their old ways? And they spend a lot of time talking about that. And as I say, there was tension between the two groups. That's what the commentators tend to talk about, but they miss the point of this chapter. The point of this chapter is how to get along one with another and to not condemn one another. It says receive. Again, that nice word, one who is weak in the faith. And I'm not going to talk about weak or strong right now. But not to disputes. In other words, receive. Don't argue about doubtful things. And again, this word doubtful. Looking at the Greek, the Greek word, and you have to pardon my Greek on this, it's something like dialogue. It's strong 1261. And if you want to spell it, it's D-I-A-L-O-G-I-S-M-O-S. And why this is important, it says doubtful things. This is the thinking of a man with himself.

It's a thought. It's inward reasoning. So that's what a person might sit down and think about or meditate about and then want to share one way or another. Either to share his new understanding, or to condemn somebody for not following his new understanding. So this is the subject of this chapter. Receive one and don't argue with him over or her over doubtful things, over thoughts made up in their minds. Again, it doesn't say we're talking about God's law. It doesn't say we're talking about the Sabbath. It says doubtful things. So this is what we're talking about. We're not talking about majors. We're talking about majoring in the minors, so to speak.

The law and the Sabbath are not doubtful things. Now, I'll quickly go through this chapter and picking up the idea at some points, and then I'll come back and we'll go through a few verses at a time. So what is the subject here? What are some of these doubtful things? Well, it's not totally spelled out, but verse 2.

It says, one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. So again, here we're talking about vegetarianism versus eating of meat. And very likely, and I'll say even more very likely, I believe it's talking about meat offered to idols. Doesn't directly say that, so I won't directly say that either, but I'll say that's what I believe this is. Now, commentators say, oh look, you know, you can eat pork, you know, whatever. We won't go there right now.

It could be the subject that Paul's talking about could be meat versus vegetarianism. Dropping down to verse 6, it says, he who observes the day observes it to the Lord. He who does not observe the day to the Lord, he does not observe it. And of course, commentators say, it's the Sabbath right there and you don't have to keep it. Let's continue on.

It says, he who eats, eats to the Lord. So we're talking about eating on a certain day now. And he gives God thanks. And he who does not eat, again fasting on certain days, to the Lord he does not eat. And he gives God thanks. So it could be fasting or not fasting on certain days. And that is involved with it. And then dropping down to verse 21, where I think it ties it together. Paul says, it's good neither to eat meat or drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.

So how is eating meat bothering your brother, even if he is a vegetarian, no, he knows he eats. Eat meat? It wouldn't. I don't think it would anyway. However, if their brother thought, well, that was meat, a sacrifice to an idol, you can't eat that. And I can see where that would bother a person. And that's basically what I think is the backstory or the story beneath Romans 14, of food that is sacrificed to idols. So now, just going through here a little bit more slowly and back up to verse 2, he says, one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables.

Verse 3, let him who eats despise, excuse me, let not him who eats despise him who does not eat and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats, for God has received him. And that's something else that we tend to come up with, and I say we, it's a human problem, as we think that, I'll say that, you know, I'm not going to eat meat, you know, just as an example, and you shouldn't either.

We have our ideas, we have our babies, and we figure if it's good for us, it's good for everybody. The whole church should be doing this. That's a problem that we tend to have. And Paul is saying don't do that. Don't despise each other, you know, if you want to eat fine, if you don't want to eat. And remember, these are doubtful things. I'm not talking about God's law, I'm not talking about the Sabbath or the Holy Days.

These are doubtful things. Verse 3 says, let him who eats, let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats. That word judge is again condemn. The same word that we had back in Matthew 7 where it says condemn not lest you be condemned, same word, krino. Judge not. Verse 4 says, who are you to judge? And again, the word is condemn. So I'll read condemn, who are you to condemn another man's servant?

To his own master, his stands are falls indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. Continuing on, it says, one person esteem's one day above another, and another esteem's every day alike. Let each be persuaded or convinced in his own mind. And again, those commentators will write and say, see, you know, talking about the Sabbath, you know, however you're convinced, you know, peace speak to you, you know, don't judge.

No, that's not the case here. First off, it says, one person esteem's one day above another, another esteem's every day alike. Let each be persuaded or convinced in his own mind. Convinced of what? Convinced of what God's word says. Again, not about doubtful things, not about what you think it should or should not, but about what God says it should or should not be.

We need to understand what God esteem's and what he does not esteem.

Verse 6, he observes the day, observes it to the Lord, and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord who does not observe it. Again, I've read this once, he who eats eats the Lord's. We're talking about eating or not eating on certain days. He who eats eats the Lord, for he gives God thanks, and he who does not eat to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. I'm going to stop right there. Some were apparently fasting on certain days of the week. Some were not fasting on certain days of the week. And from the chapter, you can't exactly tell which group was which. It could have been the Jewish people that came into the church. And if you recall, I shouldn't say if you recall, the Jewish people coming into the church, some of them had a tradition they fasted twice a week. Remember there's a parable, and the parable is found in Luke 18 of the Pharisee and the tax collector, where the Pharisee is saying, you know, how good he is. You know, I fast twice in the week. And so now he's, let's say, in the church at Rome, and he says, I fast twice a week, and you should too. You know, this type of thing. That could be the scenario. The other scenario could be Gentiles that came in the church. They also had fast days, if you will. In fact, I don't know when this changed, but when I was a boy growing up, there was a faith that fasted from meat every Friday. They would not eat Friday, you know, let's do that, they would not eat meat. They would eat fish on Friday. That way they fasted. That was their belief, and somewhere, I'm not sure, 20, 30 years ago, somewhere that was changed, where they can now, these people can eat meat on Friday. It could be that. So it could be either group. It doesn't say, but the point is, and Paul is making, if you don't want to eat meat on certain days, or if you want to fast on certain days, do it. If you don't, that's okay too. You know, if you want to eat on certain days, that's okay also. Now here we have two opposites.

The opposite of uniformity, you know, doing different things. But Paul is saying, be united, you know, work together on this. It's a doubtful thing. It's not a major issue. Verse 7, for none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. And dropping down into verse 10, it says again, but why do you judge? And again, the word is condemn, creno. Why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? We're all going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Now, in other words, our relationship is before Christ. Don't be picking on one another. Don't be fault-finding. Don't be critical of one another. Again, it's of one another. It says, for it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. And then dropping down in verse 13, it says, therefore, again, a conclusion. When Paul says, therefore, that means whatever has gone before, now we've got a conclusion here. It says, therefore, let us not judge, creno, condemn. Therefore, let us not condemn one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or cause to fall in our brother's way. In the Old Testament, there's a passage back in Leviticus saying, you know, don't put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. You know, you're going to make them fall. Arguing like this about doubtful things, this can put a stumbling block in front of a brother or a sister. Paul is saying, don't do that. Don't do that. What would be some examples today? I mean, we can read about this. We can look at that, and I think we can understand it, but again, just to look at some examples today. Next week, there's a holiday coming up as far as the world is concerned, and I'm sure that we're all aware of it. It has to do with candy, and the candy is usually in the shape of something. It can be a heart. It can be, I don't know, maybe a cupid. I'm not sure. It can be something. It's all over the place, and I'm sure we're all aware of it. Let's say, you know, that you're in church, and you know, and you want some candy. You might look at that, you know, it's a piece of candy. It's chocolate, or it's a mint. You know, it's, you know, and that's all that it is to you. It's candy. And, according to Paul, according to the Bible, you know, there's nothing wrong with picking it up and eating it. However, you know, if you look at that, and you have a background, you know, that's, this day used to be a big deal to you, and that's not just a piece of candy sitting there. That's a symbol of something. You know, that's a symbol of something, and you know, this brings back all kind of memories. You shouldn't eat it. You shouldn't eat it at all.

Matter of fact, if you're with somebody who thinks it's okay to eat it, the person who thinks it's okay to eat it shouldn't eat it either. Not because there's something wrong, but because you don't want to offend your brother. You don't want to put a stumbling block in your brother's way. Let's read a few more verses here. I'll drop down to verse 15. It says, yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you know, you have a little piece of chocolate there, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died. And then dropping down to verse 20, do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. And then all things indeed are pure, but it's evil for the man who eats with offense. Verse 21, it is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine, or have a little chocolate heart or whatever, or drink wine or do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak. So this would be an application of, you know, what we could do today, how it would affect us today. Mr. Chubig was in South America a couple weeks ago, and he talked about meeting with another Sabbath-keeping group, and they conduct services differently than we do. I don't know how many have heard the message. Some have here. They conduct services differently than we do. Is it wrong? No. It's not wrong at all, and this is what they do.

Now, where it could be wrong is, let's say that there's a fair contingent of us from the United States or from the United Church of God that decide to go to this place for the Feast of Tabernacles.

Now we've kind of got two groups, and we're doing things not quite the same way.

Not that one is right and the other is wrong, but now we're really, it's more than lack of uniformity. It's getting to a lack of unity because we're doing things differently. And so somebody has to make a decision that this is what we're going to do. And I would assume, this kind of thinking out loud here on my feet, that if you know it's their territory, we're on their home turf, we're going to do things their way. So I'm thinking that, and again, what they do is not wrong, it's just different. I could say, let's say an example here in church, there is a decision made a while ago, years ago, about don't applaud in church. And if you're typical, I would imagine there's some in this group that say, I'd really like to applaud. And there's some also in the group saying, you know, not applaud. Well, for the sake of unity, a decision was made. And we all respect that decision. Again, for the sake of unity, it's the love that glues us together.

It's not, again, that one is right or one is wrong. It's not God's law, certainly it's not God's law. But for unity, you know, we respect that decision. Another, just to take one more example here, I don't want to have too many examples, but eating out on restaurants, on the Sabbath. In other words, going out to eat in a restaurant on the Sabbath. There are some that see nothing wrong with that. You know, it's time to eat, time to, you know, have extra fellowship, you know, with somebody that you met in church, or that you joined up with a church with a friend. And there are others that say, uh-uh, you know, you're not supposed to eat out on the Sabbath. And again, this is one of those things that the people that say that, you know, you shouldn't eat out on the Sabbath. It's not only for me, it's for you too. You should not do that. Again, we stop judging our brother. Stop judging our brother. It's not that big of an issue. But yet these are issues grow and they develop. So this is what Paul is saying, and what we've read so far here, don't judge or condemn your brother. And especially about doubtful things. That's the subject of this chapter here. Now it kind of takes a turn here in verse 14, and I will address it since we're here. The apostle Paul, in a very strong way, says, I know and I'm convinced by the Lord Jesus Christ there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him is unclean. There it is. You know, eat whatever you want. Uh, you know, if you think it's unclean, don't eat it. Otherwise, you know, go for it. There is nothing unclean of itself. Well, I'm not sure exactly why, but here the translators did not do a good job translating this verse. They didn't do a good job at all. The word for unclean in this verse, chapter, you know, verse 14, is koinos, again, transliterated, k-o-i-n-o-s. It's Strong's 2839. And the word means common. Common. It does not mean unclean. According to the lexicon based on Thayer's and Smith's Bible dictionary, it means common, ordinary, belonging to generality by the Jews' unhallowed, profane, or Levitically unclean.

As opposed to the word for unclean, the Greek word for unclean is ekathartos, again, Strong's 169, and it means unclean. It's not fit, you know, it's not fit in a moral sense. It's unclean in thought and life. In a ceremonial sense, that which must be abstained from, according to the analytical law, so there's we have something that is common and something that is unclean. Something that is common, an example of that, would be a clean animal, say a cow, a sheep, goat, whatever. Let's say that dies of itself or is torn apart by animals. It's not fit to be eaten anymore. You know, it died out in the field. It's not fit to be eaten. So it's a clean animal, but it's common. It's, again, not fit for eating. It's not fit to be given a sacrifice or given as a sacrifice to God. However, an unclean animal, an unclean animal is an unclean animal, period.

You know, a pig is a pig, and it's unclean. And again, I hope we get the distinction. Clean animals can become common. Unclean animals, I mean, that's the way that they are. Hold your finger here and turn back to Acts the 10th chapter. Acts the 10th chapter. And we'll see a statement by the Apostle Peter where both these words, common and unclean, are used in the same sentence. This is where Christ is going to send Peter to the Gentiles, and he gives him this vision of lowering down a sheet with all kind of unclean animals in it. This is rise Peter, kill, and eat. And in verse 14, Peter's response is, Peter said, not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean. And again, the word for common is koinos, unclean is is akathartos. Never eaten anything common or unclean. There was a difference. The Jewish people knew the difference. Certainly the Apostle Paul knew the difference. And as I say, the translators, they translated it right in Acts 10. I don't know why they didn't translate it right here, but for whatever reason, they didn't. Again, Paul is saying, to live in peace, you know, not arguing or judging or condemning one another, but to have peace.

Dropping down to verse 20, it's basically the same thing. It says, do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are pure. Notice it didn't say all food is pure. It says all things are pure, but it's evil for a man who eats with offense. So what does that mean?

It means that things of themselves, again, talking about an animal, you know, a clean animal of itself, it's a clean animal. Now it can become unclean, but of itself it's a clean animal.

That's really all that it's saying here. In fact, this word for clean is a different word. It's katharos, and it's used to describe all kinds of cleanliness and purity.

I'm just going to quickly go through the list. It could be used to describe dishes.

People. Religion. You know, James 1, 27. Pure religion. It could be gold or glass, as it's mentioned in Revelation. And actually, in verse 14 and verse 20, food isn't even mentioned as far as, you know, being, you know, pure or clean. These verses are saying there's nothing, nothing common of itself. Nothing impure of itself. Now it can become that way, but of itself, nothing is common. If you'd like more information on this, I'll refer you to our booklet, you know, What Does the Bible Teach About Clean and Unclean Meats? It has a good passage about clean and unclean meats, and has a good passage on Romans 14 as well. So in summary, then, brethren, you know, looking back, Paul judged the situation mentioned at Corinth about this person who was, you know, living in immorality. Paul judged that situation. Jesus Christ judged when he was on the earth, and of course he's going to judge in the millennium. He's going to be the king of the earth, and he's going to judge righteously. Jesus Christ told us that we need to judge now, and also we know that saints will be kings and priests in the kingdom, where the saints will also judge. Not necessarily condemn, but they will judge. So again, I ask the question, should a Christian judge now? And of course, I think we all know the answer is absolutely yes. We should judge righteous judgment, and I'll go on to say righteous judgment will promote true unity.

Continuing to read on in verse, excuse me, chapter 15. Chapter 15. This is quite a long section by the apostle Paul. I'll read verse 1, and it says, we then, who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not please ourselves. And again, I really don't want to get into, you know, who is strong and who is weak, because I think at times both terms apply to us. You know, we're strong in some ways, we are weak in some ways. So it could apply, you know, at different times to each or any or perhaps all of us. But the point is not to look at who's weak or who's not. The point is what we should be doing about it. Dropping down to verse 5, it says, now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded. Again, like-minded, doctrinal unity. That's what the goal, may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded. In other words, we're not there yet. They weren't there. And it's, I don't believe we're here either. Grant you to be like-minded towards one another according to Christ Jesus. That you may with one mind and one mouth, you know, all together, uniformity glorify God, excuse me, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So that's the goal. No water here, I was just looking at that. I'll give my throat a minute and then I'll continue on. That's okay, Bruce, I'm almost done. Thank you. Verse 7, continuing on, therefore, it says, receive one another. In other words, our goal is doctrinal unity. But as I mentioned, I don't believe we're there yet. It says, therefore, receive one another. There's that nice word, receive, accept, include one another. Therefore, receive one another just as Christ has also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision, in other words, to the Jews, for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers. And that Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written. For this reason, I will confess to you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. So again, we should be judging rightly, not condemning, fault-finding, or picking on each other in a wrong way. Judging rightly promotes unity. We need to be inclusive, as it says here, to receive one another to the glory of God.