Quoting Mt 7:1 is fantastic! I love
when people quote the Scriptures as much as anyone who loves hearing it spoken
provided it is not cited out of context as a proof text for some personal agenda.
Whenever I hear the “judge not” passage being cited, I am often disappointed
because rather than calibrating spiritual thinking to stop and avoid any
hypocritical criticism, it is quoted in an apologetic or defensive mode as if the judging was completely taboo or used in a deflective manner to prevent people
from going “hog wild” about judging others. I prefer to give people the truth
and let the Holy Spirit do what He does best with His Word (Isa 46:10; 55:11;
Eph 1:11). In my opinion tempering or tampering with the truth out of practicality
is a very dangerous place to venture for any believer.
There is simply no prohibition in
Scripture against judging altogether, otherwise, we couldn’t judge righteously
(cf. Jn 7:24). If we know that and still say with a cavalier attitude, “We are
not to judge,” without injecting qualifiers, particularly on such a
controversial subject, is unwise and promoting ungodliness. People are always
looking for a way to sedate their guilty feelings. They don’t care that
their lifestyle is contrary to the Scriptures; they just want people to stop
“forcing” their moral values on them to make them feel comfy and accepted. Why
are they in church anyway? They want to live in sin and not be hassled by the
“self-righteous” people. There is a turning to God when needed and a turning
away when He is not. It’s analogous to policemen; you love them when you need
them, and hate them when you don’t!
What is concerning is when believers
buy into the world’s interpretation of any biblical passage. How in the world
can an unbeliever know spiritual truth apart from the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor
2:14; Jude 1:19)? It’s theologically impossible. I didn’t say they couldn’t
know Bible facts or learn biblical languages. Anybody can read the Bible as
literature, memorize the Scriptures, and quote Scripture with the best of them!
The lost are blinded to the spiritual truth of Scripture through unbelief (2
Cor 4:4); that’s the problem.
For some odd reason, we have embraced
the world’s position on “judge not” with a “mind your own business” attitude.
We are either intimidated by these people taking a stand on what is right,
or we don’t like people getting into our personal business either; birds of a
feather flock together. We all have experienced an offender getting offended
that you got offended by his or her offense! So we have a tendency to avoid
those kinds of people. And then there are those who love to get into people’s
business but get upset if you return the favor!
Wisdom would declare not to draw lines
in the sand on everything. Have you ever heard the warning, “Choose your
battles carefully?” Some things are not worth all the unnecessary troubles that
come with them. For instance, what color do we tile or paint the bathrooms? Going
granular or nitpicking is discouraging and divisive, not edifying and unifying.
Compromise is not always of the devil! It simply means that we don’t always get
our way. When it comes to biblical truth, however, there can be no compromising
of truth for grace or for any reason. You will never find in Scripture where
Jesus compromised the truth for grace, not one instance, and He was “full of
grace and truth” (Jn 1:14). The world will want us to compromise all day long
on things they don’t agree with us on about the Bible because they don’t
recognize its authority nor do they submit to it.
It’s scary when the truth is brought into
question and believers are undecided about what side to take a stand on because
of a “judge not” mentality or wanting to keep the peace rather than take the position with the truth. This idea of judging others is not about being nosey or
meddlesome or being moral policemen and setting all the members on the right
course; good luck with that! It is about approaching ungodliness according to
the Scripture and in the power of the Holy Spirit and not allowing darkness to
go unchecked in the church. Obviously, this is not done in the manner of the
Roman Catholic Inquisitions of torture and murder to root out heresies and
bring about compliance of the masses.
The problem today in the church is not
aggressively addressing its straying members. Ignoring is not loving;
it’s excusing if there is awareness of sin going on in the local assembly.
Accountability has a way of making people think twice about straying. Unfortunately,
the fear of running people off is seen in dollars and cents rather than an
attempt for spiritual healing regardless. We will talk more about that when we get
to the wrong kind of loving. The urgency is that sin in the camp has a
debilitating effect, but there is a lag in response time after it is known and
established a member has strayed.
Have you ever heard about someone
being mugged on the street in broad daylight crying out for help with witnesses
everywhere not lifting even a finger? No one gets involved during the mugging!
Why, because they are afraid? That is certainly one element. But beyond that, there seems to be a diffusion of personal responsibility in a crowd setting.
Every witness to the crime in progress is thinking someone else is going to
step in at any moment and set things right, but no one does. Even guilt for
having done nothing but watched the crime play out is diffused among the crowd.
Spiritual leaders are responsible but so are their members.
Think of ungodliness as a crime
against God. And we are witnesses to it. For example, we know of a couple, named John and Jane Doe, who are members of a Bible-believing church but living
in sin, coming to church and praising Jesus, and this thing isn’t hidden from
sight but out in the open, and nothing is ever said to them. There is no
accountability in the matter. Some in the community, knowing this couple,
accuse the church of being “nothing more than a bunch of hypocrites,” but that
is nothing new in any church; there are hypocrites everywhere, not just in
church!
Some members sanctimoniously say, “We
will pray about it and let God deal with it in His time.” Others say, “It’s
none of our business what they do outside of the church.” Still, others say, “It’s
not for us to judge,” or “We need to mind our own business,” or “God will judge
them,” or question the spiritual leadership, “Why hasn’t this flagrant
hypocrisy been addressed?” Meanwhile, the mugging of ungodliness continues.
Surely, someone is going to step in…? No, personal responsibility to the body
is diffused among the crowd. Nothing is done about it; the dog continues to
chase its tail.
Someone’s personal piety gets the best
of him, “Well, we don’t want to go about chasing people off because they don’t
play by our rules?!” Really? Is God guilty of fornication or adultery? Is He
guilty of sinful lusts? Does He not speak against such sins? Does He tolerate
such behavior? He is holy (1 Pet 1:16) and cannot sin (Jas 1:13), and aren’t we
to be holy as He is holy, individually and corporately as believers (Lev 19:2;
1 Pet 1:15)? He who stands for nothing falls for anything, right? Sin in the
camp is a very serious matter to take to heart (Joshua 7); we can ill afford to
take a neutral position by saying, “It’s none of my business.” Can the foot say to the thumb whacked by a
hammer, “It’s none of my business?” The
whole body is impacted and on full alert! It should be that way in the body of
Christ. We who believe are all part of the body of Christ. One day because we
belong to Christ, we all will be raptured, hopefully, before death comes
knocking at the door.
In a local assembly the body of Christ
takes shape and is identified by the world. The members must maintain body
awareness at all times and accountability to the body. We must all be caring,
loving, providing, and protecting the body of Christ as we would our own.
Figuratively speaking, a member cannot live apart from the body of Christ any more than any member detached from our physical body.
Obviously, this is symbolic but a
spiritual reality. I know there is disagreement about what I am going to say
next, but I believe that a person’s submission to the authority of Christ is
also reflected by a believer’s conduct toward other Christians (1 Jn 4:11) and
a local assembly not abusing biblical authority (Heb 10:24-25; Mt 18:20). Those
believers who erroneously think the church is irrelevant are simply confessing
their lack of submission to God’s authority. No member can live outside the
body and claim to be in submission to the authority of God. Church hopping is
not submitting to the authority of God.
There is no end to the narratives, but
eliminating all judging would make Jesus’ words in Jn 7:24, ESV meaningless;
“judge with right judgment” is not defined by abstaining from judging. People
were tripping out in Jerusalem because a man could be circumcised on the
Sabbath, but it was unacceptable for Jesus to heal a man on the Sabbath! Right
judgment is always according to the truth, not by appearances. Jesus was
promoting behavior based on the truth. I want to reel this in some and note
what Paul spoke about judging and avoiding, or perhaps more accurately, limiting being chastened by the Lord.
Now, if all judging is taboo; we can’t do what he is about to say to us either
in 1 Cor 11:31, NASB,
“But if we judged [diekrinomen] ourselves rightly, we would not be
judged” [krinomenoi].
If we took a proper view or a just
estimate of ourselves (Zodhiates, The CompleteWord Study Dictionary, on diakrínō, 1 Cor 11:31), from the mirror of God’s Word, we
would not be judged. Figuratively, the former verb translated judged (diakrínō)
means “to distinguish, discern clearly, note
accurately” [cf. Mt 16:3 where diakrínō is translated as “discern”]. I have
a sneaky suspicion that believers who fail to look into the mirror of God’s
Word to properly evaluate or discern their spiritual condition will not see a
proper view of themselves. Do you think such a person will make a proper
judgment call on others if they can’t even properly judge themselves? I think
not. Therefore, such judgment is shallow, unjust, and not according to the
truth but by appearances. Mt 7:1 would apply in such a case.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to
figure out that judging hypocritically significantly curtails if we would only judge ourselves rightly (rightly –
according to the truth of Scripture). Doing that which is right in our own eyes
is what leads down the dark path to hypocrisy and unfair criticisms being
leveled at other people. The golden rule kicks in; let me make a loose
paraphrase of Lk 6:31,
“And just as you want men to judge you
(without hypocrisy and according to truth), you also judge them likewise.”
It sounds reasonable, don’t you think?
Remember, by what measure we judge, it will be measured back to us (Mt 7:2).
Then there is the law of the harvest: a man reaps what he has sown (Gal 6:7-8).
One of the strategies for restraining the entrance of worldliness into the church
is self-judgment or self-examination.
Yeah, that’s difficult to do when
everyone else has got a problem but us! But for argument's sake, imagine you got
a problem! Through self-evaluation or a just estimate of our self promotes
personal holiness or personal purity (1 Jn 1:9). Hypocritical judging or the
absence of judging altogether produces the opposite effect by promoting ungodly
behavior and inviting being chastened by the Lord for the purpose of realigning
us to right behavior – “But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be
judged” (1 Cor 11:31). Judge (krínō)
in the latter of this verse does not specify what type of judgment; worst case
scenario is God sending physical death to some in the church (cf. 1 Cor 11:
30), but this judgment is characterized as chastening, not punishment, even under the severity of death,
“But when we are judged, we are
chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor
11:32). <><
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