Judgment (goodbye)

[aleco]

Wow there's more Christians here than I thought.

[evilbutterfly]

One must realize the difference between someone being overly critical and someone pointing out obvious flaws. The thing you quoted, "It is impossible to enter fellowship with God when you are in a critical mood" is not from the Bible, meaning it is in no way 100% truth. That is just one man's opinion of what the Bible means. I for one think that that particular passage of the Bible is telling us to not condemn others and worry so much about telling them how damned they are that we neglect our own righteousness.

I believe that those verses are speaking of hipocracy, not criticism in general. Even the analogy provided is an example of one being a hypocrit. We should not nit pick at others' minor flaws when we have much larger flaws we should be working on fixing. Even this does not mean that one may not criticize or give advice to others. The Bible emphasizes that a person be modest but proud. It says you shouldn't criticize the speck while ignoring the plank. You can criticize the speck all you want, but you must be mindful of your own flaw. I may ridicule somebody's artwork, saying that they could do much better, but I would also admit that it is far superior to something I could do.

I don't see why you're leaving. I suggest that you don't read what Oswald Chambers or anybody else thinks the Bible means. Read it, figure it out, decide for yourself what it's saying. Perhaps after you've interpretted it for yourself you should look at another's opinion, but until you decide for yourself what it means, there is no truth in what you read.

That's the problem I have with organized religion. I'm Christian, but I don't believe everything that every other Christian believes. I think the Bible is highly metaphoric, and that not everything should be taken literally. We don't and can't relate to the figures of speech used in the culture back then. Just take a look at Songs of Solomon. Telling a woman her teeth look like a flock of sheep or that her breasts are like 2 gazelle does not sound like a compliment today, but in Biblical times that would make the woman awww and say how sweet her lover is. Keeping that in mind, read things for yourself and figure them out. Don't let some scholar or priest try and tell you what it means. Discover it on your own.