The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:15-16
The spiritual person is to judge all things. Another translation says 'appraises all things' meaning we assign value or worth to all things. I don’t see us as believers doing this consistently. We rarely appraise things that would require it, probably because we don’t want have to question ourselves and possibly give up something that we’re doing.
We don’t want our activities to be drawn into question as long as they are not overtly acts of sin. But we incorrectly define sin, it is not this act or that act; it is the condition of our hearts that enables our laziness and apathy, among other things.
I have heard some justify (and I have done the same in my heart) that a particular activity is not explicitly forbidden in the Bible and there’s no harm in it, therefore anyone forbidding it to me must be overly puritanical or legalistic. But the Puritans understood better the things of God than our generation, and Paul tells us otherwise in saying that we are to appraise all things.
How are we to appraise these things if God gives us no specific instruction? Paul answers that question with one of the more amazing answers given in God’s word. We have the mind of Christ! Think first of what an amazing and useful gift that is. Now stop and think of the enormous responsibility that this puts on us.
We have no excuse; if we have been called and redeemed by Christ then He has given us the ability see things from his perspective. And we must appraise all things through that perspective and not our own fallible and sinful point-of-view. With God’s grace and the mind of Christ this is possible and expected.
1 Corinthians 2:15-16
The spiritual person is to judge all things. Another translation says 'appraises all things' meaning we assign value or worth to all things. I don’t see us as believers doing this consistently. We rarely appraise things that would require it, probably because we don’t want have to question ourselves and possibly give up something that we’re doing.
We don’t want our activities to be drawn into question as long as they are not overtly acts of sin. But we incorrectly define sin, it is not this act or that act; it is the condition of our hearts that enables our laziness and apathy, among other things.
I have heard some justify (and I have done the same in my heart) that a particular activity is not explicitly forbidden in the Bible and there’s no harm in it, therefore anyone forbidding it to me must be overly puritanical or legalistic. But the Puritans understood better the things of God than our generation, and Paul tells us otherwise in saying that we are to appraise all things.
How are we to appraise these things if God gives us no specific instruction? Paul answers that question with one of the more amazing answers given in God’s word. We have the mind of Christ! Think first of what an amazing and useful gift that is. Now stop and think of the enormous responsibility that this puts on us.
We have no excuse; if we have been called and redeemed by Christ then He has given us the ability see things from his perspective. And we must appraise all things through that perspective and not our own fallible and sinful point-of-view. With God’s grace and the mind of Christ this is possible and expected.
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