Jehovah's Witnesses Straight Talk - Forum/Blog

Matt.18:5 Whoever receives one such little child in my name receives me, 18:6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him that a huge millstone should be hung around his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depths of the sea.

Often Christ made powerful shocking statements to those listening, here Christ profoundly puts every person whom judges by sight, that is, the flesh in fear of themselves being eternally judge by God! How are we to takes such fearful powerful words of this righteous man Christ Jesus?

Matthew 7:1 "Don't judge, so that you won't be judged. 7:2 For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you.

Luke 12:58 For when you are going with your adversary before the magistrate, try diligently on the way to be released from him, lest perhaps he drag you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison.

John 7:51 "Does our law judge a man, unless it first hears from him personally and knows what he does?"

John 8:15 You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one.

First, if we fail to take the context of Christ words in the many gospels, and his apostles writing elsewhere we will fall into one whom builds a verses or two into works of law, self-salvation, and a whole host of contentious wicked reasoning and judgments, the very thing Christ words warn against. Here Christ speaks to those under law for thousand's of years, they had one mind set, judgment, fierce judgments, without mercy. Anyone not obeying the Law of Moses was an enemy to God and them as his people. They refused to mix with anyone called a sinner by their law, they refused to show love for anyone but a Jew.

Matthew 9:10 It happened as he sat in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

This is the context and the condition of most of their hearts, this heart condition was also at times found in Christ own disciples, and is certainly found in all of us at times. Subsequently, a honest hearted person would have gasp at Christ words knowing they just might be one of those God puts a milestone around their neck and cast into the sea. What could a person do when the very laws was perfect and good, given them by God, how could they secretly not sin, with a heart found treacherous by God's law, being born into sin, not one person was found righteous by God's law, but all had judged by it and sometime perhaps too harshly. This quandary could not be fix by disciplining the flesh harshly like perhaps many of them had done to families and friends the law did not perfect the flesh, it did not remove sin from the flesh, and it did not rewards the flesh with eternal life, it rather condemned it as worthy of death, and nothing more. Christ than would fix that problem head on with his own life.

James 3:1 Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment. 3:2 For in many things we all stumble. If anyone doesn't stumble in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also.

Such shocking speech left them with no way out, none could be perfect in speech and action upon earth, none could punish themselves and others with judgment to right their own wrong against God's righteous and good law. Here is the context Christ preparing hearts into a love of truth, but first each person either had to lie thinking they were superior and could meet Christ words or humbly themselves as a good for nothing slave and beg for God's undeserved kindness as child believing God really is love and not just judgment from the law.

1 John 4:8 He who doesn't love doesn't know God, for God is love.

So the context is the solution for all of us, Christ and his life fulfilling the law, casting our deserved sins into the sea, where we must receives such kindness as child not just towards ourselves, but all those Christ pays the price for, as his property, by proving faith to God as the one faithful slave of God. Where these disciples going to preach the death of their own flesh in Christ Jesus removing their judgment or put the law upon the necks of those they taught essentially making them a curse under the power of sin and death, were they going to live by Spirit and truth, or walk in sight beating others with judgments they could not keep themselves in putting away the filth of their own flesh?

1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.

Romans 7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring forth fruit to death.

Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.{NU omits "who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit"}

Romans 8:3 For what the law couldn't do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh;

Romans 8:4 that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

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