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If the gospel-even when you are orthodox-becomes something which you primarily assume, but what you are excited about is what you are doing in some sort of social reconstruction, you will be teaching the people that you influence that the gospel really isn't all that important. You won't be saying that-you won't even mean that-but that's what you will be teaching. And then you are only half a generation away from losing the gospel. http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/blogs/cj-mahaney/post/Don-DA-Carson-Preserving-A-Passion-for-the-Gospel.aspx
Be patient; it is better to be a chastened saint than a carefree sinner.
The heart of true fellowship is self-sacrificing conformity to a shared vision.Basics for Believers (16)
that branch of theology whose concern it is to study each corpus of the scripture in its own right, especially with respect to its place in the history of God's unfolding revelation. The emphasis is on history and on the inddvidual corpus.Unity and Diversity in the New Testament
The verb "judge" (krino) has a number of different nuances, depending on the context—ranging from ordinary discernment or evaluation (cf. Luke 7:43), to judicial litigation (Matt. 5:40), to bestowal of reward (19:28), to pronouncement of guilt (John 7:51), and to absolute determination of a person's fate (5:22; 8:16). The latter two senses are in view here: Jesus warns his disciples against setting themselves over others and making a pronouncement of their guilt before God.
NIV Application Commentary: Matthew . Zondervan
Jesus' demand here is for his disciples not to be judgmental and censorious. The verb krinō has the same force in Romans 14:10–13 (cf. James 4:11–12). The rigor of the disciples' commitment to God's kingdom and the righteousness demanded of them do not authorize them to adopt a judgmental attitude. Those who "judge" like this will in turn be "judged," not by men (which would be of little consequence), but by God (which fits the solemn tone of the discourse). The disciple who takes it on himself to be the judge of what another does usurps the place of God (Rom 14:10) and therefore becomes answerable to him. The hina mē ("in order that … not"; NIV, "or") should therefore be given full telic force: "Do not assume the place of God by deciding you have the right to stand in judgment over all—do not do it, I say, in order to avoid being called to account by the God whose place you usurp"
“Matthew,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 183.
You cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself.
At the end of the day, the central notion of sin in
Wright's thought is that it is somehow anarchic rebellion against shalom, and the triumph
at the end is the restoration of shalom. What is lost is the intensely personal dimension of
sin: it is rebellion against God, and he is regularly portrayed as the most offended party
(cf. Ps 51!).http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/5581_5877.pdf
the command to judge not is not a requirement to be blind, but rather a plea to be generous. Jesus does not tell us to cease to be men (by suspending our critical powers which help to distinguish us from animals) but to renounce the presumptuous ambition to be God (by setting ourselves up as judges
Put the gospel first. And that means you must put the priorities of the gospel at the center of your prayer life.Basics for Believers
when he says, Judge not. It is not necessary that believers should become blind, and perceive nothing, but only that they should refrain from an undue eagerness to judge: for otherwise the proper bounds of rigor will be exceeded by every man who desires to pass sentence on his brethren.
Commentary on Matthew
we must carefully note the exact meaning of "judge" (κρίνετε); in this context it does not mean a court trial or admonition. It cannot refer to discerning or evaluating right and wrong. All such are valid for believers (e.g., 1 Cor 5:5; Phil 3:2; Gal 6:1; Heb 3:13; 1 John 4:1). So what does this judgmental attitude connote? It means looking down on a person with a superior attitude, criticizing or condemning them without a loving concern (the opposite of the second we-petition on forgiveness, 6:12).
The key component is the absence of love. Admonition has a humility that says, "I love you enough to want to help you, and tomorrow you will need to correct me." There is no sense of superiority, no desire to make yourself look good at the expense of another. Bruner says this prohibition is the flip side of the fifth beatitude (5:5, "God blesses those who are merciful") as well as of the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer (6:12, "forgive us our sins") and recapitulates the commands in ch. 5 against anger, revenge, and hate
Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 257–258.
Christian fellowship, then, is self-sacrificing conformity to the gospel. There may be overtones of warmth and intimacy, but the heart of the matter is this shared vision of what is of transcendent importance, a vision that calls forth our commitment.Basics for Believers
The broader problem is that a great deal of popular preaching and teaching uses the bible as a pegboard on which to hang a fair bit of Christianized pop psychology or moralizing encouragement, with very little effort to teach the faithful, from the Bible, the massive doctrines of historic confessional Christianity.
However hard some things are to understand, it is never helpful to start picking and choosing biblical truths we find congenial, as if the Bible is an open-shelved supermarket where we are at perfect liberty to choose only the chocolate bars. For the Christian, it is God's Word, and it is not negotiable. What answers we find may not be exhaustive, but they give us the God who is there, and who gives us some measure of comfort and assurance. The alternative is a god we manufacture, and who provides no comfort at all. Whatever comfort we feel is self-delusion, and it will be stripped away at the end when we give an account to the God who has spoken to us, not only in Scripture, but supremely in his Son Jesus Christ.
sometimes God chooses to bless us and make us people of integrity in the midst of abominable circumstances, rather than change our circumstances.
If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior.
If I have learned anything in 35 or 40 years of teaching, it is that students don't learn everything I teach them. What they learn is what I am excited about, the kinds of things I emphasize again and again and again and again. That had better be the gospel.
The claims of unity and truth, the challenges of a party spirit, speaking in tongues, the doctrine of the resurrection, church discipline, sexual matters, marriage and divorce, "strong" and "weak" consciences, the Lord's Supper, the relationships between men and women, the nature of love, the call to preach the gospel powerfully without manipulation, the nature of Christian leadership lived under the cross they are all here.Pillar Commentary (introduction)
People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. For the Love of God Vol 2
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