Why do you judge your brother?

Clearly, the contemporary church has a problem with judgmental attitudes. The focus of today's post will deal with judgmental attitudes within the church. We obviously have great problems with our unChristian attitudes to those on the "outside" (see Barna Group findings), but dealing with those will have to wait for another day. If we are to truly love our neighbors as ourselves, we need to start doing a more Christlike job of loving one another.

Paul asks this question to the Roman Christians, a multicultural group if there ever was one:

10But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.

Far too many times have I witnessed the contempt that Paul speaks of within the church. I have heard sermons from Baptists bashing Lutherans and Methodists. I've heard Catholics speak of Protestants as being "unsaved" and vice versa. And within my own fellowship, the churches of Christ, we have hundreds of issues that have brought about division and a loss of fellowship. There's no tactful way to describe these conditions: They are wrong! They are sinful in the eyes of God!

Paul admonishes the Romans later on in Chapter 14, saying this:

13Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this--not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way.

14I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

15For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.

16Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil;

17for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Paul is primarily addressing the Jewish Christians within Rome here. They had taken up a self-righteous attitude toward the Gentile converts in Rome who did not share their Mosaic traditional history. Paul does a fantastic job of differentiating here. He pays respect to the Jewish traditions from which he himself descends. At the same time, he warns the Jewish Christians not to let these traditions become a "stumbling block" to the Gentile converts. There is a "bottom line" here, according to Paul: In Christ, we need to be about righteousness, peace, and joy, united in the Holy Spirit. None of our traditional practices is going to bring that about.

If we as Christians are to begin retaking our influential place in the world, we first are going to have to drop these petty arguments that bring about division. When we cast down our brother or sister in the name of women wearing dresses, kitchens in the church building, the nature of the communion wine, and yes, even a capella worship, we are not being righteous. We are being self-righteous, unfairly condemning our brother who does not share in our tradition. This does not bring forth peace or joy, but conflict and bitterness. We can be sure such divisions are not the result of the Holy Spirit.