Should I judge others? Jesus is clear. I have plenty of my own issues. I should look in the mirror and focus on how I miss God’s goal (aka sin). And, there is plenty to focus on there. The list is quite long.
How about if I just judge less? The issue isn’t about judging less. The issue is not assuming a role that isn’t mine. Jesus challenges me to not judge at all. I clearly have a problem with this. I think I know a lot. I see “right and wrong”. Why not judge? I have been given some level of authority in life.
Who is the Judge? Jesus has been given the role of Judge by his Heavenly Father. I can serve other roles but Judge is not one of them. Jesus said “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.” God is God. God is in charge. Jesus has given me the standards of how I should live. There is plenty there to focus on starting with Judge not.
7 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
Source: Matthew 7:1-5 (ESV)
Jesus Quotes and God Thoughts 
This one is a tightrope walk at best. Clearly we ‘judge’ by discerning right from wrong. It is also plain we are NOT to throw our views on others. At the same time, Paul tells us to judge members of the church. all in all, I see it that our method or mechanism for judgment for others will be used on us. Last: there is a direct and easy way to JUDGE behavior and not character. Okay, I”m not bowing out on this one for no, not that God loves the sinner and hates the sin, but that we are not to look at the sinner, for it is Christ and Christ alone that judges. We can still see the ‘bad behavior’ for if we didn’t see it that way, we could duplicate it. This is a no-brainer. We should not repeat behaviors we know are wrong.
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Love the perspective that it is a “tightrope walk”. That says it very well.
I think the context here, and in other places where Jesus uses this word (Greek κρίνω), has to do with “judging” someone for the speck in their eye when we have a log in our own. This is consistent with the narrative around the woman caught in the act of adultery. After Jesus wrote in the sand, no one would condemn her. Some think that is because Jesus was spelling out their own sins for them to read.
In the Jesus manifesto (Matthew 5 – 7), Jesus sets for a whole series of higher standards. So for example, Jesus says “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Why should I judge someone else about adultery when I am consumed by lust? I think Jesus is challenging me to focus on my own problems.
As a note, you will find that most of my posts are “short form” not “long form”. I try to keep posts in context but don’t go the next step connecting articles in longer themes.
Be blessed.
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Love this post. I hate when people accuse us of judging when we hold one another accountable or call out sin.
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