The Bible is a useful tool with many applications. It is the book of life that brings forth encouragement. It is a double-edged sword that we use to vanquish the attacks of the enemy. The Word also likens itself to a mirror that we use for self-reflection and self-check.
James 1:23-24 says, "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like."
God's Word is a powerful force that brings forth conviction in our lives which results in obedience and complete surrender. It is through reading the Bible that we understand God's true heart for us and how righteousness plays a big part in that.
However, just as there are many things that the Bible can be to Christians, there are also some things that it can be used very poorly as. For instance, the Bible is a very poor set of binoculars. What that means is that God's Word was never meant to be used as a tool to compare our holiness and righteousness with others.
In Matthew 7:4-5, Jesus speaks very strongly about this behaviour by saying, "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."
Jesus then takes it up a notch and gives a label to people who act this way. In verse 6, He bluntly calls people who use the Bible as a set of binoculars pigs with pearls. Ouch! Have you ever been called a pig? That's not a very nice thing to be called, but God sees it no other way.
And that's not to say that accountability, rebuke, reproof and discipleship are not important. What draws the line between reproof and judgmental behavior is the heart motive. For one, judgmental behavior never reaches the subject you magnify with your "spiritual binoculars." It just goes round and round circulating amongst circles but never directly to the people who need to hear it. Secondly, the heart's motives go in completely different directions. Rebuke is always done in the context of love and relationship while bigotry acts in the premise of exclusivity and disdain.
That's what using the Bible as binoculars results in, and God makes it very clear how unpleased He is with this attitude. In the area of the personal pursuit of God's holiness, we never have the right to flash the footnotes to others because we ourselves will never match the ultimate standard.
When we truly understand the message of the Bible as a whole, we will understand that it was meant to be a mirror for self-reflection and self-improvement, but never a tool to magnify the sins of others.
It's not our job to change a person's life. That's God's job. Our only job is to reflect upon our personal fruits and let them flow to others in the form of love, not in the form of judgment.
