Judge Not, Yet Discern

You hear from everyone telling you,”Judge not lest you be judged” It is scripture, this is correct. However the interpretation of this scripture is what is important. Modern society will like to tell you,”If you think what I am doing is sinful, don’t bother me, your book says it isn’t right to judge.” In fact it isn’t hard to imagine someone drunkenly going down the street being obnoxious and you to say,”Yo, stop being a public drunk, that is sinful.” and them to snap back,”Don’t judge me.” Are they correct in saying that? Are you wrong in telling people not to be sinful? Let us examine this scripture.

When Jesus is telling people not to judge, he is meaning,”Do not judge people to hell in comparison with your own merits for getting into Heaven.” This is because at that time, some people felt they were more holy than others and through their good works, they get into Heaven. Salvation is different though. All men are sinners and fall short of the grace of God, and as such, we would all go to Hell if it wasn’t for Jesus. Jesus saves us. Thank you Jesus for that. Yet at that time, many people didn’t know that. There would be people who would say stuff like,”I’m too holy for you to come near, away from me with your sinful self”. After all if someone actually thinks through their own piety they get to Heaven, why would they want to hang out with sinners who might taint their thinking or tempt them to sin. Someone who falsely thinks of themselves as holy might go,”It is better to stay away from sinners, lest a sinner make me fall.” Then you have Jesus over there, hanging out with sinners. That didn’t sit right with a lot of people who thought of themselves as holy. Also if these holy people don’t want their thoughts tainted, they sure weren’t expecting Jesus to come with a whole world of new thoughts that they’d have been best to adopt. Jesus wanted these people who thought of themselves as holy to not think so much of their own selves, and more of others. This is one reason why Jesus might have said this. Another might be eternal in thinking,”If you really want to not forgive another person to the point of accusing them to God, your own sins will show up in the process.” There may be other reasons too, but the most important thing is that we obey Jesus.

Now, in case you don’t know already, there is such a thing as someone with exceeding passion to obey, but doesn’t understand the orders. Remember that skit in Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail where the guards want to obey the king, but don’t understand the orders. In case you never saw it, here it is. While that video is hilarious as is much of that movie, it is normally tragic when people misunderstand God. Misunderstanding orders yet thinking thinking they come with the divine authority of God is a bad combination. It is bad enough when people misinterpret the Bible(which I admit is very easy to misinterpret if you’re not a theologian). But if you start saying divine signs or sounds told you to do something, that can get even worse. Depending if you’re a Christian or not, you may or may not believe in the Devil. Well as sure as God is real, the Devil is real, and one thing he does is lie to people. Read (*e1) below if you wonder why God just doesn’t stop him from lying. Anyway, if the Devil lies to someone and they think of it as God’s authority instead, all sorts of bad things can happen. These things almost never miss the news(A dog bites man sorta deal), so you hear about it happening sometimes. It is just all sorts of bad when someone has passion to obey, but doesn’t understand the orders. Let us look at this scripture “Judge not lest you be judged” and how it is commonly misunderstood.

Judging has several definitions:
From “Compact Oxford English Dictionary of current English, third edition” (*c1):
Judge: Verb 1 Form an opinion about ‘a work should be judged on its own merits’
2 Give a verdict on a case or person in a law court.
3 Decide the results of a competition

Certainly it did not mean all these things at once, to do so would be to equivocate. Equivocation is when a word means several different things, but is used in the wrong situation. A star is a celestial body of gas that shines light in space. A star is a famous celebrity. Tom Cruise is a star. So Tom Cruise is a celestial body of gas that shines light in space. No, that is wrong and is equivocating.

Now let us look at the three definitions of judging. Rarely if ever is it #3. Dancing with the Stars just wouldn’t be the same without judges in that case. Now it is either 1 or 2. #2 is to give a verdict on someone, and is what Jesus meant we should not be condemning other people to hell because they aren’t holy enough. #1 however is what some people also accept though. Some people think we cannot even form opinions of others lest we are judging them. Certainly there is merit in that argument when we look to the evils of judging someone unwarranted (prejudice). But are we to never form opinions of people? I think it isn’t the case. Otherwise, why would Jesus tell us to form opinions about people to see them pigs or dogs right after? Let us look at the full scripture:

Matthew 7:1 1 “Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you, 2 for God will judge you in the same way you judge others, and he will apply to you the same rules you apply to others. 3 Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye? 4 How dare you say to your brother, “Please, let me take that speck out of your eye,’ when you have a log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. 6 “Do not give what is holy to dogs – they will only turn and attack you. Do not throw your pearls in front of pigs – they will only trample them underfoot.

So it is very obvious, if you call someone a liar deserving of hell, yet you yourself have lied yourself, you could not escape hell yourself if you stayed firm to your convictions. It is meaning #2 we’re looking at then as it fits: “Do not ‘give a verdict on a case or person in a law court’ condemning them to hell” So what about meaning #1? Well that means it does not have to apply unless you’re equivocating. Trust me if this is eye opening for you, it was for me also. This means we’re allowed to form judgments on someone. For example if someone is a liar, we can then use our judgment to say,”Well that person lied to me before, he might lie to me again.” We are allowed to form all sorts of positive or negative opinions on people. And for most of you, this should be a “Duh!” moment where you’re like,”I always weigh in on someones actions based on their prior actions.” But some might not know this was even allowed if they incorrectly employed equivocation.

So to answer our questions earlier,”Can someone tell you, ‘Don’t judge me’ when they’re being sinful”. I guess a sinful person without Jesus can tell you anything as they aren’t following God, and yes, if you teach Jesus to the unchurched, you may hear just about anything in response. But is it scriptural for them to tell you,”Don’t judge me”? Absolutely not. If someone is doing something sinful and you see it, you should tell them to stop. Matthew18:15 “If your brother sins against you, go to him and show him his fault. But do it privately, just between yourselves. If he listens to you, you have won your brother back. 16 But if he will not listen to you, take one or two other persons with you, so that “every accusation may be upheld by the testimony of two or more witnesses,’ as the scripture says. 17 And if he will not listen to them, then tell the whole thing to the church. Finally, if he will not listen to the church, treat him as though he were a pagan or a tax collector.

Of course, when you’re telling someone to stop being sinful in this modern era, it might not really bring them towards Jesus, but push them away. So exercise tactical discernment on how to tell people to stop sinning. Not all cases of someone sinning against you are cause for a reprimand. After all, people understand when they’re forgiven a lot better then when they’re being accused. So it is probably rare you should confront someone with their sinning, but when you do, you’re allowed to tell them they’re in the wrong. This is not what the scripture speaks against.

-Jim Sager

(*e1) God’s ways are above our ways. There is no way to determine why God might do one thing or not, but God does sometimes give the Devil permission to do certain evils such as lying to someone. I think this is mostly to prove how resilient some of God’s followers might be in resisting lies. But I can’t be certain, just one of many possibilities.

(*c1) Thank you Donald Paulson, lover of books, for buying me a nice dictionary. I had this thing for years but never needed it until now. If I quoted an online dictionary, it might change, but a print dictionary does not change and people can look it up at any time. This is one reason why wikipedia is nice to start learning stuff, but to cite wikipedia is very weak since it changes on you over time.