Judged by One’s Own Words

David had stolen his soldier’s wife but couldn’t see the wrong in it. The prophet Nathan approached and told him a story of a rich man and a poor man. The rich man had several sheep and goats, but the poor man had just one lamb he treated as his child. One day, the rich man had a visitor, and the rich man wanted to offer the visitor a roasted lamb. Instead of taking a lamb from his flock, the rich man took his poor neighbor’s pet lamb, killed it, and offered it to the guest. When David heard this story, he was furious. He wanted that rich man punished, to which Nathan said David was that rich man who could have had any woman he wanted but chose his soldier’s wife.

It is always easy to find faults in others but not in ourselves. But our words of judgment are the accusers against us. We will be judged by the same measure when we judge someone, just as David was judged by his judgment.

Peter’s audience believed a truth about God:

They called “the Father an impartial judge who judged every one according to his/her works.” (1 Pet 1:17a)

That was a good acknowledgment. The word “impartial” in Greek is a compound word with three elements: a-orao-labano, “without-sight-taking.” The law said,

“Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe because it blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the innocent.” (Deut 16:19)

When a judge looks at the plaintiff and defendant, s/he might see a friend among them and favor the judgment towards that friend. Similarly, if the judge were to take a bribe, his/her judgment would be biased. The Hebrews taught that God didn’t take sight or see the faces of the people he judged but judged purely based on their works. That was true and good.

Believing such a truth had consequences. If he were such an impartial judge, he would judge them also by their actions. As such, Peter said,

“You turn around your life to live in reverence during the time of your exile.” (1:17b)

Cause and effect: Because they believed God was an impartial judge, they should live in reverence of God, even while they were in exile from the temple and holy land. Peter used a verb, anastrefo, that can mean “live” or “conduct,” but it also has the concept of doing it again (ana). That implies that the readers were once living in reverence, but something triggered them not to live in reverence, perhaps life’s struggles or persecution. Whatever it was, they should jumpstart again, living in reverence of God, especially since they considered God an impartial judge.

The old maxim, “When we point our index finger at someone, three others are pointing at us,” is true. We must start with self-examination before pointing to the sin of another. Am I committing the same sin? A teacher once told me, “We get angry at others when we see our sins in them.” For example, if we struggle with drunkenness, we get judgmental of someone with a drinking problem. Instead of judging them or us, we offer grace. That’s what God did for us.