1 Corinthians 4:3-4

"But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. "

Does what other people think about you matter? Well, in the sense that we need to have a testimony before people, yes. But that is not the focus here. Here we see that what other people think about your spiritual condition before God does not matter. Perhaps the whole Paul, Apollos, or Cephas division from the previous chapters was still in view a little bit here. Perhaps the dissension had gone so far as people questioning Paul’s spirituality or even his salvation.

Paul’s response indicates that that kind of talk is not appropriate. But his response also indicates that while they meant to be threatening to him, he was not threatened by it. He was not threatened because no human viewpoint had the power to alter his position before God. No person gets to decide who goes to heaven and who doesn’t. People who say unkind and inappropriate things may be divisive, but they cannot shake your standing before God.

It is not even your own conscience that is the ultimate judge of your standing before God. God is the one and only judge. We should not pronounce judgement on people, declaring their spiritual status, as if we know. We cannot know. We can know what the Bible says, and we can tell people what the Bible says. The Bible reveals how God judges. But it doesn’t give us the authority to decide any person’s spiritual state.