We human beings are burdened by our tendencies to harshly judge others and ourselves. Unfortunately for believers, this bent is as prevalent in the church as in the world.Pastor and author Gregory A. Boyd calls readers to a higher standard through understanding the true manner in which God views humanity: as infinitely worthwhile and lovable. Only an attitude shift in how we perceive ourselves in … ourselves in light of God’s love can impact how we relate to people and transform our judgmental nature.
Believers wrestling with the reality of God’s love and Christians struggling with judging in the local church will appreciate this examination of how we move from a self-centered to a Christ-centered life.
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I can’t say I liked it, but I can’t say I don’t recommend it, either. There were some good things and some bad things.
Good things:
He argued thoroughly and convincingly that the original sin of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is the basis for all subsequent idolatry, condemnation by us humans, and failure of the Church especially to live out of love.
The first chapter explained the amazing love our triune God has for us, welcoming us into His fellowship.
The Holy Spirit used one section to enlighten me of why I felt dissatisfied even with my relationship with the Lord—because the rituals of how I spend time with Him like reading my Bible and praying had become my idols.
Bad things:
A lot of repetition. I felt that all of Part 3 (chapters 7-9) merely repeated his assertions in the previous part, with more eloquent words describing our sinful condition.
The lack of clear definitions. I had to wait for three chapters before I really figured out what “getting life” meant. He never defined judgment and explained the difference between discernment and condemnation. And even his definition of love in chapter 1 left questions: “It is the act of unconditionally ascribing worth to another at a cost to oneself.” How do you ascribe worth to another human being – and how or when does it cost me to do it? That was never really answered, even in the last chapter, which was supposed to be the practical one.
A few verses seemed to be taken out of context, like Matthew 10:39 on p.75.
His focus on the negative. Almost every chapter except the last focused much more on the sin and its consequences than on any constructive advice on how to move past it. The last chapter had been promised several times in the previous ones as the answer to all questions about how the Church really should act. It wasn’t. And the conclusion – and even at least half of the slightly more positive epilogue – still focused on the negative.
His final answer to how believers are supposed to lovingly point out sin in our fellow believers is small groups. That’s the only context that this works and is loving. All other contexts don’t give us the trust we need before we allow people to speak into our lives in a rebuking way, except for the very rare occasion of church discipline by the leaders. This is too “all or nothing,” almost an absolute statement. After all of his vague statements about not knowing or ever being able to know all the variables in another person’s life (except in a small group) and so we should never rebuke them, this felt restrictive. What about those of us who go to churches where they don’t have small groups? What about those of us who are members of small groups but the members keep changing, never letting us feel safe enough to confess our sins? What are we supposed to do – demand that our pastors start small groups? Or go against our leaders and start our own? And what about intimate relationships that are not in a small group setting — do they act like a small group enough to justify this kind of accountability? It just left more questions than he answered.
Favorite quotes:
Though there were many I disagreed with, there were also many I liked and agreed with:
“We are created with a hunger only the triune God can satisfy… God wants to be the source of our life—our worth, our sense of fullness, our significance.” (p.29-30)
“We are only balanced in our understanding of love when we understand that it the one thing we must live in—to all people, at all times, in all situations, without exception. If we do this, everything else that we need to do will get done. If we don’t do this, there’s simply nothing else worth doing” [1 Corinthians 13]. (p.60)
“Our judgment is both the result of our seeking to feed ourselves with idols as well as an idol with which we feed ourselves.” (p.82)
“The sins a particular religious community is good at avoiding tend to be the ones identified as most important to avoid in the mind of that community [such as homosexuality], while the sins a community is not good at avoiding tend to be minimized or ignored altogether—regardless of what emphasis the Bible puts on those sins [like pride or gluttony].” (p. 83)These examples are one he uses himself in the same chapter. His point is that we pick and choose which sins to judge—always those we don’t do ourselves.
“The only conclusion about people God allows us and commands us to embrace is the one given to us on Calvary: People have unsurpassable worth because Jesus died for them.” (p.107)
“Adam and Eve’s story is not just a ‘once upon a time’ story; it is also the story of every human being. The beginning of all sin—the origin of all that is unloving—is a judgment about God.” (p.127)
“Living out of our knowledge of good and evil, we display and strive to acquire all we judge as good. And we suppress and strive to avoid all that we judge to be evil. We perform and we hide [like Adam and Eve].” (p.161)
“Our outrageous love becomes a puzzle to them [unbelievers] for which Jesus Christ is the only adequate explanation.” (p.213)
“A community of outrageous love is centered on its confidence that the Holy Spirit is at all times and in all people at work to change us into the likeness of Christ… And it is woven together around this center by the intimate relationships its members have with other members in small-group fellowships… [It] is centered on the tree on which Christ hung rather than on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” (p.223)