Religious Hypocrisy

Pastor Daniel Goulding · Jun 16, 2024

In Matthew 7, Jesus is not forbidding all judgment but condemning hypocritical and superficial judgment. The context targets religious hypocrisy, not discernment itself. Scripture consistently teaches that believers have a responsibility to hold one another accountable with gentleness and humility — while never imposing Christian standards on those outside the faith. The church's calling is to lead with grace that opens the door to truth, and to always restore fallen believers rather than discard them.

Pastor Bill Bush · Jan 28, 2019

In John 8, Jesus confronts people who claimed to believe in Him yet wanted what He offered while rejecting who He truly is. True freedom is not found by following a list of rules or relying on religious heritage, but by personally knowing Jesus — the great I Am — through His Word. To reach that freedom, a person must honestly admit three things: that they are powerless to fix their own brokenness, that the way they are currently trying to make life work is not working, and that without surrendering fully to Jesus, they will inevitably end up opposing Him rather than following Him.