Wednesday: Mastery of Criticism of Fellow Christians
WEEK 41
WEDNESDAY
MASTERY OF CRITICISM OF FELLOW CHRISTIANS
Psalm 15
We come now to a particular application of the mastery of criticism—the mastery of criticism of fellow Christians. Of the people of a certain South Sea island it was said facetiously that they maintained a precarious living by taking in one another’s washing. Some Christians maintain a precarious spiritual living by washing other Christians’ clothes, mostly in public. One such minister used to send a prominent fellow minister a telegram every Sunday morning, denouncing him. As his wife was about to die, she called him and said, “I am afraid we have been on the wrong track.” As this minister told what his wife had said, he rolled in an agony of remorse on the floor of a minister’s study. Criticism had come home to roost—and how!
Paul was severe on this type of departure from the Christian Way, “Who are you to judge someone else’s servants? They stand or fall before their own Lord (and they will stand, because the Lord has the power to make them stand)” (Rom 14:4). This penetrating statement offers this warning: You may be condemning someone whom the Master commends; “the Lord has the power to make them stand.” Then you and Christ are at cross-purposes over this person.
The Christian Way is simple: Christ is our Redeemer and our Judge; we are the beings redeemed, but not judges. That makes every Christian look on fellow Christians with a redemptive look. Every Christian belongs to Christ, and anyone who belongs to Christ belongs to everyone who belongs to Christ. Christ as the loving center holds everyone in love around that center.
Now when we slip off of Christ as the center and begin to revolve around doctrines about Christ as the center, then we will be divisive. We are then revolving around our opinions instead of around a Person. The Person unites; opinions about the Person divide. If I say, “What do you believe?” we go apart; if I say, “Whom do you trust?” we are together—one name upon our lips, one loyalty in our hearts.
O Christ, you are the center and you are the circumference. If we have you, we have everything. Help us to have you by having your attitudes toward everybody. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: All my rising criticisms of people will turn to prayer for them.