Community Accountability
You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him Leviticus 19:17
Reprove – When Paul begs us to stop being conformed to the patterns of this world (Romans 12:2), he means a lot more than a change in moral behavior. Christianity is not about being a “better” person. It is about seeing the world from God’s point of view. That changes everything. It changes the way I count success, what I think about education, the methods I adopt to accomplish tasks, the value I put on relationships and my perspective on community. (There is a lot more, if you’re interested.) Paul’s statement in Romans reminds us of the ancient Hebrew worldview. This word, yakah, is part of that worldview – a very important part – because it tells us that God is not just interested in my obedience before Him. He is interested in how I help my neighbor be obedient before Him. God sees me as part of a community. I am not an island in the stream. What happens to someone in the community, happens to me. I am my brother’s keeper. In fact, this concept of communal responsibility is so important that God uses the same word twice. The verse literally says, “reproving, you reprove” (h’vokiha t’vokiyha). It’s similar to Isaiah’s phrase “perfect peace” (shalom shalom). In Hebrew, this is like God’s exclamation point!
Our Western society is the product of the Greek mind, not the Hebrew culture. Yes, we have a layer of Hebrew morality frosted on the Greek cake, but the essence of our thinking is Greek. We are individuals, joined together by necessity and choice. We believe that we ultimately stand or fall on our own. That is not the Hebrew way. For the Hebrew, everything rides on the community. That’s why the sin of one person brings punishment on the whole camp. That’s why God speaks to all of Israel as a single son. That’s why I am to love my neighbor with the same active benevolence that I show toward myself. That’s why my identity is tied to my tribe (my ancestry). And that’s why I am to take very seriously (with an exclamation point) the spiritual well-being of my neighbor. I am responsible for him because I belong to the same community.
In case you were wondering, Jesus did not change this concept. His new commandment puts a double exclamation point behind the idea of community. I am to love my fellow travelers in the Way just as Jesus loved me. “One another” is a critical part of being a believer. Wherever I fail to act in the best interests of my brothers and sisters, I fail to understand and practice God’s view of community. Reprove is a community thing. It cements me to you. It means that I care enough for you to correct you before it’s too late. And I need you to do the same thing for me. Believing is a “together” business.
