Judge not...or Should We? Reexamining a Rarely Understood Scripture
Worth Remembering
Judge not... Recently, the phrase excised from Matthew 7:1 displaced John 3:16 as the most referenced passage of scripture. A declaration of God's love for creation being dethroned by a warning alone would not be tragic. Unfortunately, misunderstanding and even abuse of the text has led to passivity among believers, open endorsement of sin, and even accusations that the Bible is contradictory and untrustworthy. After all much of the same chapter implicitly involves evaluating gifts, fruit, trees...
Understanding of that text and Luke 6:37, hang on the proper understanding of the word "judge". The word must be viewed not as we use it today, but as the message was received by the original 1st century recipients. "Krino", the word translated judge in both the Matthew and Luke passages, involved deciding by separating". Think of it as separating objects like seeds by color, type, perceived value, or quality. Rather than a rebellious taunt declaring, "You don't get to tell me how to live," the texts offer a cautionary advice.
If you separate (yourself or others), you are going to end up divided and alone. It is not a call to take our ball and go home shouting, "So there!" Instead, the Bible whispers, "Be very careful, you are about to choose such a lonely painful broken path." Estrangement is seldom Biblical. God's children are not to simply to storm away in disgust. Were are not to hold grudges; we are called to love and forgive, Leviticus 19:18. We are called to draw together and resolve conflicts, Matthew 18:15-17. And, yes, we are called to judge, not by appearance or emotion, but by what is right in the eyes of God, John 7:24. That's Worth Remembering.
Great advice and solid thinking! I've also clarified this to others by pointing out that God gives judges and rulers the right to judge, but not the regular citizens. I'm not talking about making sure to keep each other accountable, which is also a form of judgement if one thinks about it. Instead, I'm referring to the fact that we should not take vengeance into our own hands or become vigilantes for "justice" that God has not sanctioned.
One sad fact that you mention is that this “Judge not” passage has displaced John 3:16 as the most quoted passage. Perhaps it’s because too many of us have deployed the concept of judging incorrectly. Rather than looking at the log in our own eye first, we’ve focused and condemned the speck in our neighbor’s eye.
It’s always easier to confront the sins of others than our own sins. In fact, the fact that so many of us do this, suggests that we are either blind to our own logs (sins), or we think our sins are lesser than the sins of others, or we’ve struggled with our own sins and are incapable or unwilling to abandon them.
Yes, we are to judge, but we should start with the only person we can change (with God’s help) — ourselves. And when we judge others we should do so in a spirit of humility, knowing that we are fragile, imperfect judges ourselves and, but for God, we would all be hopeless in our sins.
Thankfully, there’s much to learn about judging when we crack open the Book and are willing to read the entirety of what it has to say about this important topic. Thanks Julie for focusing our thoughts on such an important and relevant topic.