¹³ Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way.

Righteousness and justification being worthy of serious and extended treatment, we find it surprising the amount of space Paul gives to the problem of Christians judging one another. Consider the Jewish penchant for the minutely working out of righteousness in the details of life: , even to the point of how far one is allowed to walk on the Sabbath Day before it turns into “work.” Or how far does one go to avoid idolatry before it begins to encroach significantly on one’s life, especially when it comes to culinary habits and enjoyments?

True, many of Paul’s readers were not Jews, but the propensity to wrestle with doing good and being found to be acceptable to God (or whatever deity one worships) is ingrained in the human soul. Evidence for this can be found in the worship acts of Cain and Abel, which introduce in biblical history the fact that God does indeed distinguish between what is acceptable to Him and what is not (Gen 4:3-7). And this distinction led to sinful recrimination by one brother (Cain) against another (Abel). Can you hear the echo of this story in Paul’s admonishment to not judge one’s “brother”?

If, as Paul writes, we are not to judge our fellow Christians, then what should we do when we believe they are doing something wrong? We really have a hard time leaving the judging behind, so we put it into “positive” terms: “I am really concerned for him.” But are we, or is this really our compulsion to try to tell them how to run their lives, so that it measures up to what I think is how they should live? The trouble is that we all think we have the better insight into how people should live. And we cannot hide our judgmentalism, even if we don’t say anything. What we do say, whether by innuendo or hard-to-hide facial expressions, easily gives away our inner attitudes.

When we do these kinds of things, the other person is hindered because now we have drawn the other person into a personal conflict whose premise is misguided. Our goal in all the controversial, debatable things that Christians find themselves in conflict over should be the other person’s benefit. At the very least, we should avoid doing anything that would cause that person to stumble. That includes engaging them in the “judgment” battles that will consume their spiritual energies in an ill-advised waste of time. And it also includes coercing them or influencing them to act contrary to their conscience. With this though, Paul next turns back to the conflict over Christians eating food offered to idols.

Lord, help me not be the cause for any other Christian’s stumbling in their faith.