I’d like to share with you something I wrote on another’s Facebook page. She asked if we are to forgive others even when they persist in wrong doing. There were many comments on that topic, and a few on related topics. My own belief is that we have no choice in the matter. I believe God has made it quite clear that we are to forgive…not for the benefit of the other person necessarily, but for our own benefit, well-being, and sanity. And we are to forgive even though one "persists in wrong doing," as the questioner said. One only need think of Jesus on the cross asking God to forgive his killers, Stephen in Acts doing the same, or in the present day, the Amish a few years ago as they forgave the killer of their children as they were at Amish school.
This also demonstrates God’s forgiveness of us, even though we persist in wrong doing (As Paul said, “I do those things I do not wish to do, and do not do those things I know I should do. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me…?) even as Christians.
The discussion took a tangent of what is right and what is wrong, and how we deal with that in others. The rest of this blog is my response to that question. I commend it to you as my poor effort to make some sense out of judging, forgiveness, tolerance, right and wrong, and our relationship with God and others.
I am not the final arbiter of what is right and wrong for another. I have no business telling someone else for example, that they cannot divorce...I have to decide for myself what, if anything, the Bible has to say about that and about my specific situation. There isn't much that is clearly black and white in Scripture. That's by God's design. He has set us free from the law and has put His Spirit in our hearts and His word on paper (so to speak) to guide us...not guide others.
One thing is clear. Romans 14 and others (I Corinthians 8 to 11) talk of some things being wrong for some but not wrong for others. There ARE such things in the world, and I don't have a monopoly on the "correct" list of such.
The brother will stand regardless of his stance on the issue because God will make him stand, Paul says. Evidently, God doesn't care one way or the other on many issues as long as we love one another, forgive one another, and don't judge one another, violate our consciences, or cause another to stumble.
That's a pretty tall order. It's a lot easier to have a handy list of "rights and wrongs" we can pull out and use on others instead of loving, forgiving, deferring to, and encouraging. If we want to have a list for ourselves, that's our business. We dare not use our lists on others. That is, in my view, presumptuous to say the least and putting ourselves in God's place (as Judge) at worst.