Do You Not Know That We Shall Judge Angels?

"Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?  Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?  And if the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts?  Do you not know that we shall judge angels?  How much more, matters of this life?" 1 Corinthians 6:1-3

It is a rare and difficult thing to understand the mind of another.  It takes a relationship built by lots of time, and/or a common interest and background.  Something that connects.  A shared experience.  It is this very same feature of Man that dooms us to repeat the mistakes of history and enables us that most glorious and miraculous gift of friendship, and love.  Let me explain what I mean:

 

In order to understand the mind of another human, you have to spend some time or have some shared experience.  There is no other way.  Our brains are learning machines and can only process information that it gets.  This is why the young cannot comprehend the lives of the old - because they haven't gotten there yet.

 

On the down side, we must recognize, that as humans, we cannot truly understand the thoughts and emotions of another unless we ourselves have experienced very similar things.  That is why people of today don't recognize patterns of the past and will often repeat the mistakes of previous generations.

 

On the good side, because of the rarity of shared experience, there is true joy when we encounter someone that understands us and our thoughts and has similar experiences and thoughts to share.  There is also true joy in spending time together with people to actively share experiences together.  This is the foundation and source of friendship and love.

 

Lawsuits can only happen where there is a catastrophic absense of love.  This is why brothers under Christ should never be in a lawsuit on opposite sides.  Justice and love are equally rare to find in the secular court system, even in a righteous country like ours.

 

I had the misfortune of being in a multi-million dollar law suit that went to a very lengthy and painful arbitration.  Things I would have sworn were true, turned out not to be, and things that I knew could not happen did happen.  We won in the end, but it was painful and it robbed me of much during the process.  There was no love in it.  I cannot imagine two Christians, bonded by fellowship in Christ letting things get to such a state. 

 

Paul writes in this chapter six such wisdom.  But I fear that most will not truly appreciate its implications or understand the power of what he is saying unless they have been through the legal system in a painful way so that the understand how unpleasant and void of love the process is. 

 

I think this first half of the chapter has two lessons to draw:

 

1.  Don't let a disagreement destroy the love between Christian brothers or sisters.  It would be better to give in and let the other win, even sacrificially than to break the bonds of fellowship.

2.  Even against non-believers, there is mercy to consider.  If the saints will truly judge the world, you will be deciding the fate of others and whether they spend an eternity in damnation or salvation.  Anything in this world is trivial by comparison.  Besides, mercy may show a love that could plant a seed that eventually may lead the opponent towards Christ.

 

One lesson drawn from my experiences is that no legal document, no argument, no contract, no carefully crafted strategy will get 100% to the truth.  There can never be total satisfaction from the law.  In fact, rarely can they come remotely close to such a thing.  As Christians, we should know this.  No man-made institution can produce truth, justice, or especially love.  Only God can do that.  Better to settle the case before court amongst each other than to waste the time, energy, and material treasures on arguing.  More often than not, there is pride at stake and there is no room for love or brotherhood in it.

 

Indeed, the sign above every courtroom should read "Am I my brother's keeper?"  I think that would better set the expectations of participants and discourage the use of the building in the first place.  (Read Genesis 4 to understand what I mean)

Who is Hegel, Burgess and Rauschenbusch?

This is the question I ask myself as I read this article that I found at the Heritage Foundation website.

The reason? Because from that article, I read this:

For Hegel, whose philosophy strongly influenced the Progressives, "the state is the divine idea as it exists on earth." John Burgess, a prominent Progressive political scientist, wrote that the purpose of the state is the "perfection of humanity, the civilization of the world; the perfect development of the human reason and its attainment to universal command over individualism; the apotheosis of man" (man becoming God). Progressive-Era theologians like Walter Rauschenbusch redefined Christianity as the social gospel of progress.

This bold statement on the part of these progressives confirms the supposition from conservatives that socialism is a Godless philosophy. I grew up seeing statements made by lampooned, warmongering generals in movies and television spouting stuff like "those godless commies", and such. The notion of the lunacy of the commentary was accepted without question by my young brain. It was just rhetoric from some fanatics in our own country. Now, as I read more and more writings from the progressive movement, communists, etc, I find that, in their own words, they have discarded any notion of faith in God.

If you go to the ivory tower of progressive thought, you will not find God in it. He does not belong. However people may believe downstream from there might think or belief, the foundational philosophy and belief system of collectivism and all its unholy children and relatives, is that Man is perfectable by Man, and God is not required, or desired.

This is not some crazy, paranoid, Christian radical talking; this is the progressive intellectual themselves talking from their own writings. It is not a matter of debate, but rather of exposure to the original source.

I am tired of the political banter in my country and its rank dishonesty. Not because all of the participants are dishonest, but rather ignorant. I believe people on the left when they say they have no allegiance to Stalin or Mao or Marx or even Hitler. But I also believe that the part of those characters that they reject is simply the unsavory reputations, and if you were to somehow present to them the philosophies of these men to modern liberals, without revealing the sources, they would find much to be admired.

The problem with collectivism is not the goals, necessarily (although with more understanding we can find problems with these as well), but rather, it is the necessary conclusion and implementation of those goals. They either don't think through the conclusions of their ideas, or don't believe bad things can happen if they just have good intentions.

The good and the bad? The good thing is that if people actually understood what progressives actually thought and said behind closed doors, they would never get elected to office in this country except in the most radical leftist corners of our society and perhaps not even then. The bad? Collectivist thought has become very good at disguising itself as something else and coopting language and words that sound like things people want and believe in. It is truly Orwellian, the use of language in politics and, if we want to keep our liberty, we truly must become what John Adams once observed in the America of his day:

It has been observed that we are all of us lawyers, divines, politicians,
and philosophers." - The 5000 Year Leap, Cleon Skousen, p. 250

I would add historians to that list, particularly the era of the American Revolution and that of the Progressive movement between 1880 and 1920. Only with that proper historical and philosophical perspective can we truly understand current events and modern politics of any stripe.