Judgment - 1 Corinthians 4:1-8

1 Corinthians is an interesting book because the chapters are relatively short and not as overly abstract like Romans was, but there is still so much in Paul’s writing that is difficult for me to understand. I’ve been thinking about Paul a lot lately though, and his “adventures” and he’s pretty inspiring, when we have hard things to do, and wonder if the Lord will help us, or to even consider what kind of lengths God will go to in order to preserve his servants. It’s interesting to think about.

The overview of chapter 4 is summed up nicely in verse 2, which says, “Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” Perfection isn’t possible, but trying our best is. Paul goes on for several verses about judgment, not only judgment between each other but also judgment that we inflict on ourselves. I think there are two ways to look at this, first is that our spiritual progress or faults are honestly none of our business. I remember thinking about something once and saying, “I don’t deserve that,” and it came to me loudly and immediately, “what you deserve is not up to you, it is up to me.”

This is why I have such a difficult time with the concept of “you deserve it,” because really, we have no idea what someone is worthy of, and honesty there are way too many people out there, most of the human population I would suggest, that deserve so much better than they receive. So yes, someone might “deserve” a reward or punishment, but that person’s reception of that blessing or curse has nothing to do with us, and we need to just mind our own business and try to make people’s lives better wherever we can.

The second way that Paul’s judgment statements can be taken is that if we don’t judge ourselves, then how will we ever be able to know our faults to fix them? Would it just be us going about our merry way doing whatever we want because we won’t hold ourselves accountable? That doesn’t make any sense. If we are in tune with the Holy Ghost, then we don’t need to beat ourselves up about our mistakes all the time. We absolutely can reflect, but not necessarily on our actions, but how we felt about them afterward. If we are wrong, the Holy Ghost will steer us in the right direction, no self-deprecation needed.

Another aspect of judgment that Paul talks about is “who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast though that thou didst not receive?” What I really like about this verse is that the word “receive” is cross-referenced with Mosiah 4:19 which says, “For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?”

Our society has a huge issue with this concept today, specifically the idea that someone’s value is tied to their wealth or lack thereof. I was actually just talking to a friend about this the other day because there are so many people who believe that if someone is poor it is because they are lazy or don’t work hard enough. What is difficult, however, is for many people to recognize that a significant portion of our population has been disenfranchised to the point of generational poverty and oppression. We are getting better, but to be honest, if I think about minority communities, is just very very very recently that there has been a shift in availability of opportunities.

My brother said it best when describing this “bootstrap” mentality of “anyone can be rich if they try harder.” He said, “to be successful, hard work in necessary, but it is not the only thing required.” He went on to say that in order to be “successful” in whatever way your society defines, one must be in the right status that allows for growth within that society. For instance, until the last couple of decades, if you were born brown or to immigrant parents, your likelihood of success was statistically very low. Is that because of some inherent flaw in the genetic make up of minorities? Of course not, but the cause was that our society would not accept any upward movement from that contingent of people.

This goes back to, who caused one person to be born into a disadvantaged situation and another person to be born into an advantageous one? God did and that’s the point that Paul is trying to make, God was the one who put all people in the circumstances that they are in, and had nothing to do with anything that we purposefully did on our own. Therefore, any advantageous situations that we have come from God, not because we “deserve” them. It goes back to what my brother said, was hard work necessary for these ancient saints to be successful? Yes. But was that the only thing required? Not at all. And that’s a lesson for us today as well.