Judge Not

The king is dead; long live the king. Most of us can remember the day when "John 3:16" was prominently displayed at every televised football game, it seemed. This dear verse was, in its day, the most oft quoted verse anywhere. We (Christians) knew it. Even non-Christians knew it. It was the king of verses from the Bible. Of course, that day has ended. There is a new king of verses. It seems that a new verse has taken the lead in the most-often-quoted category. That would be Matt. 7:1. Oh, sure, you all know that one. Everyone ... together now ...

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

Funny ... despite the popularity of more modern translations, I would bet that a lot of you even put in the "ye" in that verse instead of a more updated "you" because everyone seems to know this verse.

Do you doubt it? Here, try this. Make a moral claim against a popular activity or idea or some such. Make a public proclamation why you think that Sex and the City is not a good movie for anyone to see because of its aberrant morality or that homosexual behavior is a sin or that it's wrong to have sex outside of marriage or whatever other of that kind of judgment call you might like to make. As long as you make your moral claim based on Christian principles, it is almost a guarantee that someone somewhere will throw that verse back in your face. "What ever happened to 'Judge not that ye be not judged'?"

Now, there are a variety of responses to this assault. One is to be at a loss. "Ummmm, yeah, I guess you're right. We shouldn't be judging." This, of course, is a non-thinking response. If by the command "Judge not" Jesus meant "Never have a moral view on anything," Jesus was facing a whole lot of sinning Himself. A couple of verses later He commands that we should not cast our pearls before swine (Matt. 7:6). Don't you have to determine what a "swine" is? And isn't that a judgment call? And a few verses later He warns His listeners to be wary of false prophets. "You will recognize them by their fruits" He warns them (Matt. 7:15-16). Isn't that a judgment call? I mean, if you are supposed to recognize a false prophet and you do it by looking at what they produce, haven't you passed some sort of judgment? And the only possible answer to my question is "Yes!" So "We're not supposed to be judging" is not a proper response to the objection because it is not a proper understanding of the command.

Another response would be, "Well, that's not actually what it says." This is mostly accurate. (I say "mostly" because it is what it says, but it doesn't mean what it appears to mean at cursory face value.) We can show, as I did in the last paragraph, that Jesus commands value judgments. We can demonstrate that Jesus practiced value judgments. Is it possible to read the Matthew 23 series of "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" without recognizing some value judgments in it? I think it's pretty clear that Jesus was saying that they were doing something wrong. And it would be wise, in this response, to answer the obvious question, "Then what does it mean?" It's not too hard. Jesus explains in the next few verses. "For" (which means "this is the reason for the statement I just made") "with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you" (Matt. 7:2). What does that mean? Well (and He explains further in verses 3-5), that means that you need to check out your own sins first. You remember ... "first take the log out of your own eye" (Matt. 7:5). The command then is not to avoid judgment, but to avoid rash judgment. (That's why the "that ye be not judged" phrase is there.) Make sure that when you are calling someone else's sin "sin", you're not pointing 4 fingers back at yourself. This is a valid response to the objection.

In my view, the third response is the most amusing. You see, if you analyze what they're saying, it's a "foot-in-mouth" problem. Think about it. You have said, "X is sinful." They said, "Judge not!" So, here's the bottom line. You are not allowed to make a value judgment, but they are. You are not allowed to have an opinion on the morality of a particular concept or activity because their opinion is that you would be immoral for having that opinion. They are certainly free to pass judgment on your views, but you are not equally free to have views ... at least not views that disagree with their views. The third response, then, is to simply ask, "Why am I not allowed to have a view but you are?" Okay, that one is the most fun, but it's not the most likely to win friends and influence people. Still, I have always found it ironic that we Christians seem to be the only group that are not allowed to have an opinion on the morality of an issue. Why is that? Never mind ... rhetorical question.