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Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 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? 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? 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. [1]

Matthew 7:1 -5

Oh, my goodness. We live in a world where a critical spirit is par for the course 24/7. It is in our culture, and it is nonstop.

Jesus wouldn’t put up with inappropriate judging. His challenge to us is clear. No picking on people, no jumping on their failures, no criticizing their faults if we have the same issues in our lives. No judging of others unless we want to be judged by God. This is serious stuff. Jesus is not kidding. God’s goal for us is for us to focus on loving others. God is the judge, not us.

I need to live my part in what our Father wants me to do. That has nothing to do with anyone else. It has everything to do with my relationship with God.

But there is more to this. Can we take the speck out of our brother’s eye?

This passage is used a lot about “judging others”. The point Jesus was making was not about judging but about being hypocritical in how you judge.

How should we deal with sinning disciples of Jesus?

There was a pastor who became involved immorally with a married woman in his congregation. They each divorced their respective mates and then were married to each other in the church of which he was the pastor. The congregation turned out for the wedding, giving open support.

If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Matthew 18:15-17 New American Standard Bible

That tragic story of the pastor reflects the dominant mood in the American church today, that we should show love and tolerance to those who fall into sin. That mentality is behind the push to accept practicing, unrepentant homosexuals as church members and even as pastors.

Even among churches that would not condone these things, there are very few that practice biblical church discipline towards those who persist in sin. Pastor John MacArthur reports (foreword, A Guide to Church Discipline, by J. Carl Laney [Bethany House, 1985], p. 7) that a leading pastor once told him:

If you discipline church members, they’ll never stand for it, and you’ll empty the place. You can’t run around sticking your nose into everyone’s sin.

If you’ve ever attended MacArthur’s church, you know that that pastor’s advice was not prophetic! The place is not exactly empty! But neither was that pastor’s advice biblical. Following his counsel would put us in disobedience to the words of the Master Jesus and the apostle Paul. Scripture is clear:

This seems pretty clear.

It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.

For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Master Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Master Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Master Jesus.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For the Messiah our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

1 Corinthians 5 New American Standard Bible

The church must practice biblical church discipline toward professing disciples who persist in known sin.

Perhaps no verse is so taken out of context and misapplied as Matthew 7:1, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” If you keep reading, in verse 6 Jesus says, “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine….” In verse 15 He adds, “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”

To obey those verses, you must make some astute judgments! You must judge that a person is a dog or a swine or a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Furthermore, in 1 Corinthians 5:12, Paul tells the church that they are responsible to judge those within the church. Practicing biblical church discipline does not violate Jesus’ command, “Judge not.”

I realize that  this topic will sound as if we’re trying to revive the Salem witch trials or the Inquisition. But the Bible is our standard for faith and practice and it has much to say about this subject.

There is such a thing as biblical church discipline. We should consider the purposes of church discipline, the problems that require church discipline, and the procedure for church discipline.

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Mt 7:1–5). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.