Judgmental?

I wanted to address the Anonymous comment on my Milk or Meat? post.  For those that missed the comment, here it is:

"So just because the verses are on paper means they don't take the Bible seriously? Judgmental much?"

One other commenter suggested that I not allow Anonymous comments.  Actually, all my comments are on moderation, so I choose which ones get posted and which ones don't.  I wanted to post this one for two reasons.

Reason 1) The comment made me stop and think.  Am I being judgmental?  You see, CP and I had a discussion after church about this incident.  Maybe I got upset for the wrong reasons.  CP wasn't necessarily as upset about the issue as I was.  He grew up Catholic where, to him, everything was tradition and ritual.  In his view, things were done in church because that's the way they were done, not because they had a purpose or a meaning.  He was wondering if I was interested in the kids taking their Bibles for "show".  I explained to him, that no, I want the kids to take their Bibles because they should be USING their Bibles in church. 

So back to the comment.  Am I being judgmental?  What is the definition of judgmental?  According to Mirriam-Webster , judgmental means of, relating to, or involving judgment.  Judgment means

a: the process of forming an opinion or evaluation by discerning and comparing b : an opinion or estimate so formed .

 

So, am I judgmental?  Yes.  I have formed an opinon by discerning and comparing.  This discerning and comparing was based on evidence presented to me over a period of a few weeks and through my son.  NOT based on preconceived notions with no basis in fact (i.e. not prejudice)

 

Is this unbiblical?  I don't think so.  Read  Phil 1:9-11

⁹ And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, ¹⁰ so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, ¹¹ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

 

God (through Paul) tells us to grow in knowledge and insight so we CAN discern what is best.  I think my approach is Godly and Biblical.

 

Reason 2) I wanted an opportunity to respond and more thoroughly explain my position.  I didn't say that church (or the others) doesn't take the Bible seriously.  I haven't been going long enough to make this call yet.  What I do know is that they aren't asking the kids to read from the Bible.  They just hand them what they think is important and go from there.  If they are teaching the kids God's WORD, why not expect them to bring it to class? 

 

If my kids went to public school and showed up to class without their textbook, what do you think would happen?  (or maybe it doesn't anymore).  When I was in school, the teacher asked us to get out our books.  If we didn't have them, they would proceed to ask us why.  If the reason was lame, there was some discipline involved to help us remember to bring them next time (usually writing sentences like "I will not forget my book." or some such thing). 

 

The BOOK is important.  It is THE source.  Not some piece of paper that has a brief portion printed on it. What if they took that verse out of context?  (and I'm not saying they did - I don't even know what the text/lesson was for last week)  What if they only present the verses that support their interpretation of the events?  There are certainly plenty of churches that don't believe in the whole Bible and many principles they teach do NOT line up with Scripture when Scripture is taken as a whole. 

 

For the record, it was my JR High son that responded this way.  We aren't talking about 2nd and 3rd graders.  We're talking about kids who are being challenged DAILY to throw away their faith and follow the world. If we aren't teaching them to look in THE BOOK for their answers, but rather to just take what is fed to them by the teacher, what happens when they face a problem and a God-fearing adult isn't around to give them the answer?

 

We have our kids reading from their Bible at home, but my question is why is the Church NOT supporting me in this endeavor?

 

Maybe it is because of this lack of truly reading and studying the BIBLE that the church has turned a blind eye to things like this  Fortunately, I think this church doesn't turn a blind eye to the commands of the Bible to be doers of God's word.  This is based on their living out James 1:27 as I described here

 

I just hope that I am effectively communicating to my kids how important the Bible is in making decisions on a daily basis; whether the church is supporting me or not.