John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.
It is tempting, when you see someone in the public sphere (on TV or Online) teaching or doing something in the name of Jesus you find to be suspect, to seek to correct them to the general public… the only problem with that is, there’s no Biblical warrant to do that. Are you a Pastor or a Sunday School Teacher? Then by all means, educate and equip YOUR OWN PEOPLE on what is faulty (according to the Bible) in what they might have seen on a blog or in a magazine, but this public open forum of “correcting wrong” is counterproductive and a waste of Jesus’ time (assuming you’re trying to live for Jesus). Just drop it… No I don’t need to hear about how such-n-such pastor is running his church wrong, stop telling me about how this person is poison because he’s not a 5-point Calvinist or because he is a 7-point Calvinist… just stop… stop now. Are you upset that I’m telling you something? How do you like that? As a Pastor, I’ve got no authority to suggest how anyone outside my Church should act (see: 1Cor 5). So, to the folks at my church, if you see people from another congregation doing something, bless their hearts and move along. We’re not the “Christian Police.” The pattern Jesus gave us in Matthew 18 is for OUR OWN CONGREGATION, not others’.
