Why Playing God Might Be Our Biggest Sin
Before we go any further, I need to address something.
Some of you think I’m bashing the churches of Christ. Others have told me—directly or through the grapevine—that I shouldn’t be saying these things publicly. That I’m hurting the church, dividing the body, or giving ammunition to our critics.
I understand that reaction. I really do.
But here’s what you need to understand: I’m not writing from the outside as a critic. I’m writing from the inside as someone who’s watched us hurt people—and been hurt himself.
When you love something, really love it, you don’t ignore its problems. You address them. The prophets didn’t bash Israel—they loved it enough to call it back to God. Jesus didn’t hate the temple when He cleansed it—He loved what it was supposed to be.
That’s what I’m doing. Not destruction. Reformation.
And yes, some of you will cite 2 Timothy 4 about “itching ears” or Jude 3 about “contending for the faith.” You’ll tell me I’m softening the gospel or teaching a different doctrine.
But ask yourself: What’s the human passion Paul warned about? Is it the desire to extend grace to the hurting? Or is it the desire to be RIGHT, to be the exclusive group, to look down on everyone else as lost?
Which sounds more like “itching ears”—wanting to hear that God is more gracious than we thought, or wanting to hear that we’re the only ones who got it right?
I’m contending for the faith—the one that says Jesus is Lord and saves by grace. I’m questioning whether our interpretations of disputable matters should be tests of fellowship. That’s not compromising the faith. That’s refusing to add to it.
But here’s the most important thing I need to say:
I am NOT the judge.
Not of your salvation. Not of your faithfulness. Not of whether you’re “really” saved based on my assessment of your baptism or your church, or your past.
And you’re not the judge either.
That’s what this post is about. And it might be the most liberating—and threatening—truth we could embrace.
When Religious People Play God
Jesus saved His harshest words—not for sinners, prostitutes, or tax collectors—but for religious leaders who appointed themselves as judges of everyone else’s spiritual status.
Listen to His words in Matthew 23:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.” (v. 13)
Read that again. Jesus’ fury wasn’t directed at people getting doctrine wrong. It was directed at people who blocked others from entering the kingdom.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” (v. 15)
They worked hard to make converts. Then made those converts worse than themselves by teaching them to be judgmental, harsh, and certain.
“Woe to you, blind guides… You blind fools!… You blind men!” (v. 16-17, 19)
They thought they could see clearly. They couldn’t. Their certainty was blindness.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.” (v. 23)
They got the details right. They missed the heart entirely.
Here’s my question: Have we become the Pharisees Jesus condemned?
Have we shut the kingdom in people’s faces by making our interpretations the gateway? Have we made converts and then taught them to be just as judgmental as we are? Have we focused on doctrinal details while neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness?
Be honest.
The Cost of Playing Judge
I’ve talked in previous posts about the people who’ve left Christianity entirely because of our harshness—that’s the real-world cost of playing judge. But there’s another cost we rarely discuss:
What happens to US when we appoint ourselves as judges of everyone else’s salvation?
Notice what Jesus said in Matthew 23:13: “You shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves…”
Neither enter yourselves.
The Pharisees were so busy being gatekeepers that they locked themselves out. They were so focused on judging who was worthy that they missed the kingdom entirely.
James 4:11-12 puts it even more bluntly: “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law… There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?”
When we judge, we’re not just harming others. We’re usurping God’s role. We’re saying, “I know better than You who deserves grace.” We’re putting ourselves in a position that was never ours to occupy.
And that’s spiritually deadly.
What if our certainty about who’s saved and who isn’t—our willingness to draw hard lines and make final assessments—is the very thing separating us from the grace we claim to believe in?
My Past and Your Judgment
I know what it feels like to be judged.
There are things in my past—things I’m not going to detail here because they’re nobody’s business but God’s—that certain people have used to mark me. To question whether I’m qualified to serve. To wonder aloud if someone like me should even be teaching or writing about spiritual things.
I’ve heard the whispers. Felt the looks. Been the subject of concerned conversations where people decided my spiritual status without ever asking me about it.
And here’s what I learned: The people most eager to judge my past were the least interested in examining their own.
Somehow, my failures were permanent and disqualifying. But theirs? Those were just struggles. Weaknesses. Things we all deal with.
They created a hierarchy of sins where mine were worse than theirs.
But that hierarchy doesn’t exist in Scripture.
Paul lists sins in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers. He doesn’t rank them. He doesn’t say some disqualify you forever while others just require a prayer.
Yet we do.
We’ll withdraw fellowship from someone who remarries after divorce, but seat the greedy person as an elder. We’ll mark someone for doctrinal questions, but ignore the reviler (verbal abuser) who’s been emotionally destroying his family for years.
Why? Because we get to decide which sins are acceptable and which aren’t? Because we’ve appointed ourselves as judges of whose past is forgivable and whose isn’t?
That’s not our job. It never was.
Romans 14 and the Disputable Matters We Made Essential
Paul spent an entire chapter addressing disputes in the Roman church—food laws, Sabbath observance, things sincere believers disagreed about.
His conclusion?
“Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” (Romans 14:4)
Let that sink in. Who are you to judge another person’s servant?
Paul says some believed they could eat anything. Others ate only vegetables. Some esteemed one day above another. Others treated all days the same.
His instruction? Each should be fully convinced in their own mind. Welcome one another. Don’t pass judgment. Don’t cause your brother to stumble by your freedom or your restrictions.
“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17)
Could we not say the same today?
The kingdom of God is not:
- Instrumental music vs. a cappella
- One cup vs. multiple cups
- Sunday School vs. no classes
- Understanding every nuance of baptism perfectly
The kingdom of God IS:
- Righteousness, peace, and joy
- Being transformed into Christ’s image
- Loving God and neighbor
- Faith expressing itself through love
We’ve made disputable matters into tests of fellowship. We’ve turned preferences into doctrines. We’ve elevated our interpretations to the level of God’s word.
And we’ve judged people’s salvation based on whether they agree with us.
That’s not faithfulness. That’s arrogance.
What Grace REALLY Means
We talk about grace. We sing about it. We say it’s wonderful.
But do we actually understand what it means?
Grace isn’t:
- A loophole for when we mess up
- Something that kicks in after baptism
- God’s grudging acceptance of those who jump through the right hoops
Grace is:
- God’s unmerited, unearned, undeserved favor
- The foundation of our entire salvation
- What covers our failures, our misunderstandings, our imperfect obedience
- What we desperately need every single day
Here’s the question that keeps me up at night:
If God’s grace is big enough to cover my sins—my pride, my judgment, my failures as a husband… a human… and a Christian—is it big enough to cover someone’s imperfect understanding of baptism?
Is grace big enough to cover someone who was baptized in a denomination but truly trusted Jesus?
Is grace big enough to cover someone who never heard our particular interpretation but followed Jesus the best they knew how?
If grace covers MY theological imperfections (and it must, because I’m wrong about plenty), why wouldn’t it cover theirs?
Unless… I don’t think grace is that amazing. Unless I think salvation is really about getting the checklist right, and grace is just the small gap-filler for minor infractions.
But that’s not grace. That’s a cosmic compliance system with a little wiggle room.
The grace Paul preached was scandalous. It saved the chief of sinners (him). It welcomed Gentiles without the works of the Law. It declared that we’re justified by faith—a faith that produces obedience (as James reminds us, faith without works is dead).
But Paul’s point was clear: we don’t EARN salvation by perfect performance. We receive it by grace through faith, and that faith transforms us into people who obey.
Our version of grace is… domesticated. Manageable. Small.
Maybe we need to rediscover what grace really means. And maybe that starts with admitting we’re not the ones who decide who receives it.
The Liberation of Not Being Judge
Here’s what I’ve discovered: Saying “I am NOT the judge” is the most freeing thing I’ve ever admitted.
For decades, I—like many others—was acting like “the gatekeeper.” I knew, or thought I knew, who was in and who was out:
- Baptized correctly? In.
- churches of Christ? In.
- Denominational? Out.
- Instrumental worship? Out.
I appointed myself judge, jury, and gatekeeper of God’s kingdom. And I was comfortable with it because I thought that’s what faithfulness looked like—defending the borders, maintaining the standards, keeping out those who didn’t measure up.
I was doing exactly what Jesus condemned the Pharisees for in Matthew 23:13—shutting the kingdom in people’s faces.
And I carried the weight of assessing everyone’s salvation:
- Are they baptized correctly?
- Do they worship correctly?
- Do they understand correctly?
- Are they living correctly?
- Are they saved?
It was exhausting. And presumptuous. And completely outside my job description.
Romans 14:4 says each person stands or falls before their own Master. Not before me. Not before you. Before God.
James 4:12 says there’s one lawgiver and judge—God—who is able to save and to destroy. Then it asks the devastating question: “But who are you to judge your neighbor?”
Who am I? I’m a sinner saved by grace. I’m someone who’s gotten plenty wrong. I’m someone who needs mercy every single day.
I’m not qualified to judge anyone’s salvation. And neither are you.
That doesn’t mean doctrine doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean “anything goes.” It means I can talk about what I believe Scripture says while trusting God to judge hearts I can’t see.
I can encourage someone to be baptized as a believer without declaring their previous baptism definitely didn’t count.
I can explain why I worship a cappella without condemning those who use instruments.
I can hold convictions strongly while holding my assessment of others’ salvation loosely.
Because I’m not the judge. God is.
Where Do We Go From Here?
So here’s what I’m asking you to consider:
Stop playing God.
Stop declaring who’s in and who’s out based on your interpretations. Stop marking people as lost because they don’t align with your particular understanding. Stop shutting the kingdom in people’s faces with your certainty.
Start extending the grace you claim to believe in.
If grace is amazing enough to save you despite all your failures and misunderstandings, it’s amazing enough to save others despite theirs.
Start asking: “Do we know what grace REALLY is?”
Not the theoretical kind. The real, messy, scandalous kind that welcomed sinners and made Pharisees furious.
And start trusting God to be God.
He’s a better judge than you. He sees hearts you can’t. He knows circumstances you don’t. He’s more gracious than you’ve imagined and more just than you’ve feared.
Your job isn’t to determine who’s saved. Your job is to:
- Follow Jesus yourself
- Love your neighbor
- Extend grace
- Speak truth
- Live humbly
- Trust God
That’s it. That’s the job description.
In my final post, I’ll talk about where we go from here—how we move forward with both truth and grace, how we rebuild what’s been broken, and what reformation might look like when it’s rooted in humility rather than certainty.
But for now: Stop judging. Start trusting. Let God be God.
Because if we got one thing devastatingly wrong, it might be thinking we were qualified to be judges in the first place.
