Sermon Reflections from Pastor Steve

Christians Must Resist a Censorious Spirit

We spent some time this past Lord’s Day considering the necessity of mercy and truth being exercised together. One without the other is dangerous. Mercy without truth is little more than a sentimental salve meant to make people feel better. There is nothing wrong, in fact there is everything right, in wanting to bring relief to suffering men and women. However, unless our mercy is ground in truth that speaks into hurting lives with the ultimate relief that can only be found in Christ; as God allows opportunity – it becomes mere social work and not gospel endeavor. I said Sunday, it is helpful to see mercy as the door to truth and not an end in itself.

And then there is the opposite: truth without mercy. Paul’s instruction to the church at Corinth helps us here tremendously. 1 Corinthians 13 is a treatise on love and mercy and how, without it, all of the highest order of Christian virtues are rendered useless.

1 Corinthians 13:1–3
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Isn’t it interesting that even giving to meet needs (feeding the poor) can be done without mercy; absent a heart of love?

There is one aspect of what Christian love in action (mercy) must be that I’d like to have you think carefully about. It is found in verse 5. Here it is in the New American Standard:

1 Corinthians 13:5
5 (Love)does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

Now read it in the King James Version:

1 Corinthians 13:5
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

Compare: “does not take into account a wrong suffered” and “thinketh no evil”. The characteristic of love here is stated negatively – what it doesn’t do. But what is this thing love does not do? An older English (some might say a more proper English) interpretation would point to a censorious spirit. Love does not have a censorious spirit. Mercy doesn’t manifest a censorious spirit.

Let’s grab a great ‘proper English’ theologian to helps us: Jonathan Edwards. He writes:

“..the apostle declares, that charity ‘thinketh no evil.’ The doctrine set forth in these words is clearly this: That the spirit of charity, or Christian love, is the opposite of a censorious spirit: or, in other words, it is contrary to a disposition to think or judge uncharitably of others.|
“Charity, in one of the common uses of the expression, signifies a disposition to think the best of others that the case will allow. … I would show:
I. The nature of censoriousness, or wherein a censorious spirit, or a disposition uncharitably to judge others, consists. – It consists in a disposition to think evil of others, or to judge evil of them, with respect to three things: their state, their qualities, their actions.”

I found myself learning a word I had likely never used – and then feeling the conviction of Paul’s instruction in a new way. To be censorious is to think the worst about those around us, whether they are men of the world or professing Christians. Edwards says, in the latter, of professing Christians: “…it often leads persons to pass censure on those who are professors of religion, and to condemn them as being hypocrites. Here, however, extremes are to be avoided.”

More; and this single sentence is enough to set our hearts and minds to a careful self-examination:

“And so persons are censorious when they condemn others as being unconverted and carnal men because they differ from them in opinion on some points that are not fundamental, or when they judge ill of their state from what they observe in them, for want of making due allowances for their natural temperament, or for their manner or want of education, or other peculiar disadvantages under which they labor – or when they are ready to reject all irreligious and unconverted men, because their experiences do not in everything quadrate with their own; setting up themselves, and their own experiences, as a standard and rule to all others; not being sensible of that vast variety and liberty which the Spirit of God permits and uses in his saving work on the hearts of men, and how mysterious and inscrutable his ways often are, and especially in this great work of making men new creatures in Christ Jesus.”

Think on that. Then think on it some more.

In short, we must, with our truth and necessary discernment engaged, make sure we are not guilty of an unhealthy judgmentalism. Christians must resist a censorious spirit.

Finally – – I had this quote from Dr. John MacArthur in my notes on Sunday but time didn’t allow it. Now you can read it – with Edwards’ warning on your mind. MacArthur writes:

“We must confront sin. We must call people to repent. We must warn them that their sin has consequences. But it is not for us to determine and execute those consequences. We are on a mission of mercy. Whenever the church in its history has moved from mercy to judgment, it has brought great dishonor on the name of Jesus Christ.

If you go back in history and read about things like the Inquisition, the execution of people who were deemed by the Roman Catholic Church to be substandard, disobedient to the authority of the church, or heretical; the Crusades, which were another terrible blight on the name of Jesus Christ, because crusaders marching in the name of Jesus Christ went across Europe slaughtering people.

You can go back all the way to the New Testament and we’re warned by Jesus that it’s not our responsibility to decide who the tares are and rip them out of the ground. It’s the responsibility of the Lord when He comes to do the sorting out and He’ll determine who gets barned and who gets burned. 

“The church has even engaged through the years in the execution of infidels, determining that truth was so important that if people didn’t come along with the truth, they…they actually, the church actually had a divine mandate to execute them. No less a theologian, no less a man of God than John Owen was the chaplain with the forces of Cromwell when the English went to Ireland to kill the Catholics and this again brought dishonor on the name of Christ.

“Some of the Anabaptists were actually drowned by Reformers who were pro-infant baptism and they decided that if these people wanted baptism, they’d give them a baptism from which they’d never come up. This brought terrible dishonor on the name of Christ.

“Through the years the church has jailed sinners, hanged witches, and you can name it. And every time it has been done it has brought dishonor on the name of Christ. We are, as Jesus was, on a mission of mercy.

“We continue to confront sin and call for repentance, but we leave the final determination of judgment to God and as long as we have time, we cease from pronouncing judgment and plead with sinners to receive the mercy that we offer in the gospel.

“Mercy is at the heart of redemptive ministry. Mercy is to extend to all without regard for race, or status, or gender, or age. And mercy is to be offered patiently toward those who are ignorant in unbelief.”

Mercy and truth – twin pillars of Christian engagement.

For the Master,
Steve Wilson