James's letter to judgmental gossips
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Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it.
There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?
Imagine you are writing a letter to a church. And this church has a gossiping issue. There are certain people in the church who can’t stop spreading news. In fact, it’s all of them. Whether it’s truth or lies, they keep spreading it until the whole church is aware of everything.
What would you write? One or two pages? I’d probably have a lot to say. But James addresses this issue in two verses. And here’s what he says: if you speak evil against a person, you’ve judged that person. And if you judge a person, you’ve judged the law.
And the keyword he uses is katalaleo, which translates here as ‘speak against.’ And what it means is to reduce a person by your words. So it doesn't mean to disagree with someone, but to take away from that person. To tear him or her down. To make someone lose respect for themselves, or to make others lose respect for them. To belittle someone. In legal terms it’s called slander or defamation. The Gen Zs call it throwing shade.
And it doesn’t have to do with whether something is true or not. It’s not so much about what we say, but about how and why we say certain things. Are we speaking in order to build someone up, or tear somedown down?
To make his point, James puts two actions side-by-side.
The first action is katalaleo. The second action is krino. To judge. The first has to do with the tongue. The second has to do with the heart. James is saying that the problem lies with having a judgemental attitude toward one another.
In this context, judging is not the same as evaluating or discerning.
If a man commits a crime, we put him in prison. We’ve evaluated his actions as evil and in need of correction.
James has nothing against evaluation or punishment. The problem is when we want to see others get crushed. That’s when we start collecting the truth as ammunition. Cause we don’t want to lie in church. So we’ll start weaponizing the truth. And at the right time, at the right moment, in the fullness of time, we drop the truth bomb.
And James says that if you do this to your brother, you do this to the law. If you look at each other with a judgemental eye, if you constantly have a fault-finding nitpicking criticizing attitude toward other people, then you have adopted the same attitude toward the very law of God.
What? How can someone’s attitude toward another person represent their attitude toward God’s law? It’s because they’ve stopped seeing four things.
First, they’ve stopped seeing other people as God’s beloved creation. This is especially tempting when it comes to the super villains of the world.
Second, they’ve stopped seeing the command in Lev. 19:18 which says ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
Third, they’ve stopped seeing our own sinfulness in light of God’s righteousness in the law.
Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God;
because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
The upright see it and are glad;
But all unrighteousness shuts its mouth.
Throughout his letter, James is drawing a line between a dead faith and a living faith. Those who judge the law and others, James calls a dead faith. Why? Because of the fourth thing they aren’t seeing. They aren’t seeing God.
And so when God’s out of the picture and all we have is the law, we’re going to start weaponizing it. Why? Because it makes us feel righteous. It puts us above them. That’s why it feels so good to start bashing on someone, or to turn someone into an inside joke.
James says that’s speech coming from a dead faith. A faith without works, that judges the law and doesn’t do it.
Why? And here’s the key point. If you look at the law, you’ll see that each and every law points toward harmony. Living together in harmony with God and with others. God’s law pulls people closer together. On the other hand, slander and gossip push people apart.
And so James isn’t only talking to the slanderer and the gossip. It’s also for those who give their ears to gossip. Those who like to hear about the faults and shortcomings of other people. It’s the same fault-finding attitude.
So a person of living faith is a person who keeps our mouths, their ears, and their hearts pure. How? By fixing our eyes on Jesus, knowing that it is only God who is able to save and to destroy.
Only God knows everything we’ve done. God knows all the sins we’ve committed. Even those in secret, behind closed doors. But despite all that, He chose to save and not to destroy us.
When the woman caught in adultery was dragged before Jesus, He said ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ And even then Jesus didn’t judge her.
Jesus has done the same for us. Amen? He saved us from the penalty of the law and took it upon Himself. So who are we to destroy others using the law? Who are we to do something even Jesus didn’t do?
Only those of dead faith can judge others like this. We who believe in Jesus must be different from the world. We must seek not to tear others down, but to build them up. We must speak, not to cause hurt, but to cause healing. We must purify our hearts, purify our lips, and purify our hearts. And I pray that Zion church will be a church that speaks the truth in love.
but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,
