Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 192 | Most Misused: Matthew 7:1

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

For the second episode of this series, I break down Matthew 7:1 and how the verse is commonly used to justify sin.  Today's Sponsor: If you’re thinking of replacing your carpets due to pet stains and odors, first try Genesis 950. Genesis 950 is a green, multi purpose cleaner that is safe for the entire home. Head to their website and get a free spray bottle at checkout, with discount code: BLAZE https://genesis950.com

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a good, restful weekend. Today, we are going to pick back up on a series that we started a few weeks ago called Most Miss Us, where we go through popular verses that are decontextualized, misinterpreted, misinterpreted, misapplied. both by people who are in the church and people who are not Christians at all and yet might cite particular verses in order to make a point in some kind of debate or conversation. One of those verses that is most commonly misused is Matthew 7-1, Judge Not that you be not judged.

A couple weeks ago, we did Psalm 374, delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. We will do others in the future like Jeremiah 29, 11, Philippians 413, as well as some others. that have been suggested to me. But we are going to focus on this verse, Matthew 7-1, and what I'm going to say, it might surprise you no matter where on the theological spectrum you land. I might not land on this exactly where you've heard evangelicals land on this in the past, or maybe so. Maybe you've heard exactly everything of what I'm going to say today. But I do have critiques for how both liberal and conservative Christians interpret this verse. And when I say liberal and conservative,

I don't necessarily mean political. I'm talking theological. So on the liberal end of the theological spectrum of this verse is typically used to excuse sin to absolve Christians of the responsibility of discernment. It is used as a justification to ignore what God calls sin to be able to throw our hands up and say, live and let live, you do you, do whatever makes you happy because who am I to judge? So we are going to talk about how that is a misinterpretation as well as on the other side of that. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country

aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos.

If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Okay, from pet stain removers to the Bible. It's not always a natural transition, guys. I understand that. But I do try my best. I'm not even going to try to link it logically to what we're talking about.

We're just going to have to transition right out and talk about this verse, Matthew 7-1. Like I said, it's typically used to promote moral relativism. It is used to promote this idea that Jesus didn't really care about our sin and he doesn't care about our sin or how we live our lives. Jesus is who I call in this perspective hipster Jesus. So he is your buddy. He's your pal. He's your confidant.

He's your cheerleader. He's the guy who sips his craft beer while stroking your hair and telling you how pretty and awesome you are. If this is your view of Jesus, Matthew 7.1 will sound like. a command to pretend that sin doesn't exist and to celebrate people's life choices no matter what they are. This is a very convenient interpretation, of course, of this verse and this day and age, because the last thing you want to be today is a bigot. And the fastest track to bigotry, modern culture tells us, is by claiming to believe in truth, claiming to believe in an absolute

morality that comes from God, claiming the existence of actual standards according to God's word. As we talked about in the last episode, agnosticism today is glorified as virtue and adherence to absolute truth is scoffed at. It is denigrated as being wrong, ironically enough. Matthew 7-1 is the rallying cry of agnostics and of nominal Christians when interpreted to mean that sin is non-existent. So that is one side of the misinterpretation of this first. And then you have theological conservatives, and obviously I fall in this camp, but there are many in our camp who pretend, honestly, like this verse doesn't exist, that liberals just made it up and that Jesus didn't really say this, or we write it off as not important, and that is also a huge mistake that

doesn't honor God. So how should we approach this verse? There are two points that I am going to make in regards to this passage. One, Christians should be very careful about pronouncing judgment on other people. And number two, Christians can and should call sin sin. I am going to be real. The second one is a lot easier for me than the first. It's a lot easier for me to call sin sin than it is to be hesitant or slow to pronounce judgment on the person who is committing that sin. And I think that's true for a lot of us because we are prideful. We lack self-awareness and it's much easier to look at someone else's sin than to look at our sin. But per usual, as I am preparing for these episodes and digging into God's word for answers,

I am always convicted, I am always challenged, I am always humbled to change my mindset and my actions. So let's look at this verse in its context. This verse is part of Jesus's sermon on the Mount. If you've been in church for any amount of time, you've probably heard of Jesus' sermon on the Mount. It's Matthew 5 through 7. He is preaching to the crowds. what is historically seen as the central tenets of Christianity and Christian discipleship. The sermon includes the beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer, the admonition against worry and fear and hypocrisy,

the emphasis on internal purity rather than only external obedience. It is in the sermon on the mouth that Jesus presents what is considered the revolutionary nature or the revolutionary economy of God's kingdom, where the lowly are uplifted, the persecuted are blessed, the humble are elevated, riches are regarded as nothing, and eternal glory far outweighs earthly rewards. He is telling people how to live in light of God's authority and eternity. In Matthew 7, the commentary in my ESV study Bible says that Jesus is moving from personal temptations to interpersonal temptations, so how we should relate to one another. At the end of Matthew 6, Jesus had just urged his listeners not to worry, not to be anxious,

not to concern themselves with tomorrow, but rather to seek God in his righteousness, knowing and trusting that all of the things that we need will be added to us. Then he moves into the realm of interpersonal relationships in what is in our Bible's Matthew 7. And the first command he gives in this section is that we should not judge one another. So this passage says, judge not that you not be judged or that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is a log in your own eye?

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. The Greek word for judge here is crino. So, K-R-E-No. And in this context, it means to express an opinion about a person or a thing, usually an unfavorable one in an absolute sense. The word crino is used in the same way in John 816 when talking about his own judgment. So Jesus says, You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the father who sent me. me. As an aside, there Jesus is talking about his earthly ministry. He didn't come into the world to judge or to condemn the world, but to save the world, as John 317 says, though ultimately in the

final judgment, he will judge living and the dead, as Matthew 522 tells us. The word judge in the Greek in John 816 is the same kind of judge used in Matthew 7, which tells us that the judgment we are prohibited from doing in Matthew 7.1 is the kind that is final. absolute and ultimately and totally unfavorable, a kind of judgment that declares someone guilty before God. Jesus is clear. The standards we are holding others to are the standards that God will hold us to. He goes on to say, stop concerning yourself with other people's sin when you have sin in your own life. Stop pointing out the mistake someone is making when you're making the same and worse mistakes yourself. If you want to talk about someone else's sin, first,

acknowledge and repent of your own, then you will be able to help your brother and sister turn from their own sin. What Jesus is pointing out here is that God cannot stand, he will not stand hypocrisy. We see that throughout the sermon on the mouth, specifically Jesus is weary of people ignoring their own depravity and puffing themselves up with righteousness by pointing out the depravity in others. And how guilty are we of doing that? How guilty am I of doing that? This is all of social media dialogue these days. Now, I know what many of you are thinking. What's the distinction between calling out sin in a righteous and necessary way

and engaging in the kind of judgment that Jesus tells us not to engage in? And we will get there in just a second. But I want to make clear that this is not averse conservative evangelicals can throw out in the name of being warriors for truth. And I'm talking to myself. We need to be careful that we are not going against the Word of God by judging where it is not our place to judge when we too may be guilty of the same things or similar things or equally bad things that we are calling out in other people. Romans 2-1-5 echoes Jesus' words in Matthew 7. Now Paul has just finished in Romans 1 talking about God's wrath on the unrighteous and what

unrighteousness looks like. Honestly, it sounds like he's talking about America in 2019. And then in chapter 2, verses 1 through 5, he says, therefore, you have no excuse, oh man, every one of you who judges for impassing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your heart and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Again, we see in this passage an emphasis on hypocrisy and the need for personal

repentance. In issuing judgment to others than ignoring our own transgressions, we are pretending as if our sin will be judged by God. We are taking His mercy. for granted rather than allowing his kindness to lead us to repentance from our sins. Just as Jesus and Matthew says, stop judging people for doing the same things that you're doing and instead repent of your own sins, God through Paul and Romans 2 tells us the same thing. God hates hypocrisy. God hates those who put themselves on the throne of judgment when we ourselves are worthy of the same judgment. This is the pride and the arrogance and the self- idolatry that Jesus in his sermon on the Mount so consistently condemns.

Psalm 5117 says, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. God wants us to be humbled by our own sin, troubled by our own depravity, broken over our own unholliness, taken to our knees by our own neediness for a Savior

more than we are concerned with the missteps of others. Other people's souls are. are under God's jurisdiction, and he will judge them with all righteousness. We can trust that. No sin does or will escape God's notice. We can trust that God is a God of justice, and he will judge our iniquities rightly. And for all who are in Christ, we have an intercessor, we have a justifier, a perfect sacrifice who wiped our slate clean and who has imputed his righteousness onto us so that we can stand before God in perfect innocence. Christians are relieved from this responsibility of ultimately and absolutely condemning people. We instead get to focus our energy and

efforts on our own hearts, working out our own salvation with fear and trembling as Philippians 212 says. So when Miley Cyrus sings in her song, only God can judge us, she's actually right. She is correct about something. It is God's role to judge our eternal souls. Only God truly can see the heart. Only God is perfect and therefore only God can righteously judge others ultimately and absolutely. But the fact that God judges us is no comfort for the unbeliever. That is terrifying. That is not comfort. That is terrifying. That is scary. That is fear inducing. Because why does God judge others? Because God cares about sin. So the depiction of hipster Jesus as a live and let live moral relativist is unbiblical. It is blasphemous and it leads people straight to

hell. If Jesus did not care about our sins, he wouldn't have endured a brutal death on the cross to pay for them. If Jesus didn't care about our sins, he wouldn't have come to earth at all. He could have just issued some decree that said, hey, be nice to people. and do what makes you happy. But he didn't. He left his throne in heaven, lived a life that he didn't have to live and died a death that he didn't deserve to die because sin matters. Because sin has an eternal effect on our soul, because our sin condemns us justifiably to hell. God loved us so much that he offered in Christ a permanent, sufficient sacrifice for our sin so that we could be saved from hell so that we could be reconciled to him and worship him.

spirit and his truth for his glory in our good. If sin doesn't exist, then neither does grace, neither does redemption, neither does salvation. Sin made us spiritually dead and Christ has made us spiritually alive. Both Romans 2 and Matthew 7 say that there will be judgment one day. So we can't even read these verses that tell us not to judge other people in absolution without also reading that God will judge us. We can't read these verses without also reading the call to repent from our sins. Romans 612 through 13 says this, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as

instruments for righteousness. If we are to not let sin reign in our moral body, if we are to live holy lives, we have to be able to discern what sin is. How do we discern what sin is by reading God's word? If you'd like a solid list of some of the things that God finds detestable, all you have to do is read Romans 1. 2 Timothy 316 says this. A lot of you know this verse. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness. We use the word of God to tell us what sin is and what righteousness is. We have to be able to to distinguish between good and bad to live the lives that God has called us to live. First, John 2, 1 through 6 says this, my little children, I am writing these things to you

so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this, we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments as a liar. And the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this, we may know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. In Matthew 12, Jesus says to the scribes and to the Pharisees, either make the tree good and its fruit good or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. So we have a very good indication of who follows Jesus by how they live their life. That doesn't mean that we have the power to condemn people to hell.

This doesn't mean that we write people off as hopeless. This doesn't mean that we see ourselves certainly as any better than anyone else. This does mean that we are able to say what sin is and to show people a better way in Christ. But for those who bear the name of Christian and continue knowingly and unrepentantly in sin, we do, we are called to draw a line in the sand. First Corinthians 5-9 through 12 says this. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters since then you would have to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother. If he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard,

or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. Those within the church who bear the name of Christ, whose fruit isn't indicative of a tree rooted in Christ, we are to acknowledge their sin and were not to excuse it in the name of inclusivity. That is not an excuse for hypocrisy, we are still called to assess our own sin before and even more than we assess the sins of others. Remember, Jesus said, we need to remove the log from our own eye before we can help our brother or sister remove the spec from theirs. But this is also a call away from apathy and moral relativism. The only way to strike

this balance is through utter and total and continual humility and awareness of our station before God and our allegiance to live a life that pleases him not to earn our salvation, because of salvation. So the point is this. Christians are supposed to care about sin and there is a place for righteous anger. We can look at the evil that happens in the world and we can say that's wrong. That breaks God's heart. That is sinful. Satan is a part of that. Whatever it is, whether it's abortion or terrorism or sex slavery, of course. We can call those people what they are evil and we can read Psalm 37 and we can know that God is going to be right. of them, that we are going to look around one day, the faithful are going to look around and they're going

to see that the evil doer is no more. That's the day that we are looking forward to. But again, that does not justify arrogance. That doesn't justify pride. That doesn't justify us absolutely and totally condemning people simply because that's not our place. And so it's very difficult, especially in this whole political media world, social media where cancel culture is rampant really on both sides of the aisle where it's so easy to point fingers. and again, talking to myself here. It's so easy to pretend like we're perfect and to point out the things in other people that we don't think are true in our own lives, but really it's typically because we're not looking hard enough. Now, I still will stand by the fact that it's okay to

point out false teaching. In fact, I think it's incumbent upon Christians to point out false teaching, to point out lies and to say, okay, here's a lie, but this is true. This does not mean, as I've talked about on this podcast before, disagreeing with someone or calling out something that isn't true or simply saying what you believe is not a personal attack on the author, on the speaker, on the tweeter, whoever is calling it out. That does not mean that we are condemning their souls to hell. That doesn't mean that we're saying that we don't have any sin or, you know, anything in our lives that we need to repent from. But it is saying, hey, here's this popular thing that this person said. Here's this lie that's being perpetuated. And here's the truth of the word

of God. I don't think that counts as being judgmental. But of course, I do believe that we should be constantly taking stock of our hearts. It's so easy to put up one persona online or even in church or in public or among your friends or among your family and that gives us some kind of sense of self-righteousness and a sense of being better than other people without ever taking stock of what's going on in our hearts, but we can't hide from God. And thankfully, because of the faithfulness and the persistence of the Holy Spirit, whose goal is to make us more like Christ in glorification to God,

he doesn't let us just sit in our sin if we are pursuing Christ. And now that doesn't mean that we won't sin. That doesn't mean that we won't stumble and fall. There are things that you might think today that in a year from now, you might look back on and say, wow, I was wrong for that. I was simple for that. There are many things like that in my life that I can look over even the past year that God has sanctified me through.

But that sanctification process does bring us to our knees and help us remember that any good that we do, any truth that we know isn't of us. It's not our personalities. It's not our natural inclinations. It is Christ. It is God's kindness that led us to repentance, not our natural goodness and not our morality. And so understanding that, we are really, we are really silenced when it comes to condemning the souls of other people, even when we call out. their sin. It just helps us to remember that if God was able to forgive us of all of the depravity that we are guilty of, even the things that we don't know about ourselves or even the things that we've never shown the world, then we have the capacity to forgive and to give grace to other people. I don't think that means that we don't fight for justice and we don't fight for the evildoer to be punished. Actually, Romans 13 talks about the role of the government being the being the punisher of those who commit crimes of those who do evil. But again, I think that that is a righteous judgment and that's necessary to, for the good of mankind. I don't think that that means

we're being hypocritical or judging people in absolution and ultimately in eternally, which is what Matthew 7.1 warns us against. Okay. That's all the commentary that I have on that. There were a few suggestions that I got from other people who said, I think there's one verse. I don't even know what the references for it. What is it? God was within her. She could not fail or something like that. I have seen that thrown around a lot. And honestly, I'm going to have to look at that because I've kind of just written it off as something that people are obviously probably decontextualizing. But I'll want to make sure that obviously I know the context of it and I know the proper application interpretation of it. If you have any suggestions in addition to Philippians 413 Jeremiah 2911, those are typically the ones that are cited without any context. If you've got any other suggestions for me, please let me know. Additionally, if you have suggestions for Wednesday for what you would like to hear me talk about, then send that my way. I read a lot of Instagram messages. I can't always get to every single one of them because there are typically a lot. But I try to.

to read them and if there's a good suggestion. For example, this most misused series that we're doing was actually a suggestion that I got via Instagram message and I thought that was a really good idea. I don't always cover everything that suggested to me either because I don't yet have enough knowledge to be able to give you a good analysis of it or just because it's not timely or I'm afraid it's not going to apply to enough people. I do have to kind of think about where everyone is in the country, where everyone is in their stage of life, and try my best to speak to all of you ladies out there who are listening. It is almost Christmas, which is crazy. Thanksgiving came really late this year, which means we are like thrust into the Christmas season.

I already told you guys I decorated earlier than I usually do. I think it's something about having a kid that just makes you excited even though she has no idea. She has no idea what's going on. but I want to make sure that this Christmas season that I partner with you guys to do something to give back in a way that matters. My heart typically goes to my heart and my money and all of that typically goes to pro-life centers. But there was something that I did a couple years ago. I kind of forgot about this actually. This is my dad. I'm sorry about this. But I once received, so you guys would send me suggestions for nonprofit organizations, charities, for people to give to, for people to know more about, to volunteer with. And I would talk about them on the podcast.

So I do want to bring that back up. Like if you guys are interested in sending me any charities, nonprofit organizations, pregnancy centers, any group that's doing really good work that you would like our followers to know about, what we can do is I can pick one every week from until Christmas, then I can talk about that, and then we can put the link to it in the description. And if people want to donate, if they want to get involved, if they want to post about it, they can. I'm going to make sure that we have a really good system for that. So all of us can be as involved as we want to this Christmas season. I have a giving manger.

The people at the giving major sent us the book in the giving manger, which is a really cool thing, where you do acts of kindness until Christmas and you put the hay in the little manger where Jesus lay and it's really fun. So that could be something that you and your family do as well. A lot of you guys ask me different ways that you can engage your family in Christianity and help your community. And I certainly am not the sole resource to look to for that. We try our best. And I try to direct to as much as I can, but there are a lot of, a lot of good suggestions online for what you can do to help other people during this time. So this Friday, I will be talking to Andrew Claven of the Daily Wire. I bet a lot of you out there listen to him, follow him. He is one of just the wisest, most clever,

funniest people. I can't believe I haven't had him on the podcast yet. I try to spread out the Daily Wire. People have had Michael Knowles. I've had Ben Shapiro. I've had Matt Walsh and now I'm going to have Andrew Claven. I'm really excited about the conversation because I just, I always learn something from him. He is one of those people that has a wealth of knowledge and just a treasure trove of wisdom. And I always appreciate his insight and his perspective. It's unique.

It's not something that you hear anywhere else. So I'm excited if you got suggestions for what you would like us to talk about or questions that you would want me to specifically ask him, please send those my way. I'm excited for you guys to hear it. And that's all that we have for today. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you love the podcast, please leave a five-star review. I read your reviews typically and I love to hear them. If there's something that you would like me to do differently, better, whatever, feel free to message me, email me. Appreciate you guys so much. Thank you for listening. And I will be back here on Wednesday.

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts.

I hope you'll join us.