Every Thought Captive, a weekly devotional from Park Cities Presbyterian Church - May 24, 2012

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Apples to Oranges


Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.    --Matthew 7:20

In this discourse, preached on a hillside near the Sea of Galilee,
Jesus contrasts two types of people—the religious and the righteous.
Jesus makes clear that they are very different groups of people. In
Matthew 7, Jesus discusses the difference between the religious and the
righteous when it comes to judging. The chapter is full of surface
level contradictions, one sure to confuse and confound many readers,
and too often believers.

In the first short section, verses 1–5, Jesus tells us not to judge—but
only in a certain way. Then verse 6, which reads, “do not give dogs
(i.e. Gentiles) what is holy and do not throw your pearls before pigs…”
requires making a judgment, as does knowing what to ask for (vv. 7–11),
choosing which gate and path to take (vv. 12–14), and the section on
false prophets (vv. 15–20). If we are to distinguish between a false
prophet and a true prophet, we must make judgments. So Jesus begins
this chapter by telling us not to judge, and then proceeds to tell his
followers they must make many kinds of judgments over the course of
their Christian lives. Avoiding the egregious cultural sin of judging
in order to be politically correct or to be “nice” won’t cut it for the
righteous as Jesus describes them.

The fruit of a purported prophet’s life, Jesus says, reveals what type
of prophet has come to us. But miracles and power aren’t the fruit or
the evidence Jesus is looking for. The ability to perform miracles does
not reveal the provenance of the prophet. Jesus tells some of these
types of prophets that he “never knew” them.

In 1 John, a lot of space is given to figuring out how to judge people
for who they really are; and it is there we find a clue to the kind of
fruit that reveals the provenance of a true prophet—love for others (1
John 4:7). John focuses in on Jesus’ injunctions from the Upper Room
Discourse and says repeatedly in this short letter that the best “test
of life” (or in Matthew’s terminology, the revealing fruit) is that a
true believer loves others in practical, tangible ways, and this love
is the evidence that they belong to Christ. (1 John 1:1–3 has yet
another test of life.)

These days, religious people avoid any and all judgments about
others—at least they say they do. But Jesus calls his own, the
righteous, to make many types of judgments, but to do so humbly, with a
deep awareness that our righteousness is a gift and not earned.

by Bill Bivin