Judge much?
“Judge not lest you be judged.”
Sound familiar? Where have you heard that before? Well - it’s famously quoted as a Bible verse. While it’s quoted as such, you won’t find it in the Bible.
What?!?! No, really. It’s not in the Bible. If you don’t believe me - I’ll wait. Go look. The actual quote is as follows.
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” - Matthew 7.1-2
Alright, even so. So what? It’s similar, the wording is a little different but the premise is still the same, right? No. It really isn’t.
Most people will quote “Don’t judge lest ye be judged'“ when you disagree with something someone is doing - and as a Christian you should emulate Jesus and Jesus wouldn’t judge, would he? On the contrary. He did judge. He judged the Pharisees, he rebuked people, he literally flipped tables. So why is Jesus loved and Christians despised for this judgment?
The difference is in the nature of the judgments. When Jesus judges in the Bible He judges with grace and for the good of his recipients. When we judge, we often lack grace. It isn’t just grace that we lack - it’s a wisdom. Let me explain. In school when we take tests, we are graded on the things we are taught and are expected to know. We don’t take tests for classes we aren’t in and therefore we aren’t graded (or judged) for subjects we aren’t in a class for.
Imagine Christianity is a class. If you are in the class, you learn all about it. Everyone in the class is learning the subject. So your friends not in the class aren’t learning the subject - so how could they be expected to know it? Wouldn’t it then be unreasonable for someone to give them a test on it and expect them to pass? Right, then where do we get off judging non-Christians based on Christian values?
Now you might be thinking - but wait, shouldn’t we be proclaiming Christ to the World? To that I say - not through judgement. Passing judgement based on beliefs others don’t share with us is incredibly polarizing.
Is judging ever okay? Yes. After all, Jesus judged. Except He judged believers for ignoring the laws they claimed to believe in. He judged for their own good. Seems like oftentimes we judge for our own selfish reasons, and because of that we often judge without tact.
Lacking tact isn’t something reserved for Christians - a lot of people are unable to tell someone they are wrong without being rude. On the flip side, most people who are told they are wrong fail to react tactfully. Anybody else guilty of both of those?
How do we judge our brothers and sisters in Christ in a way that benefits them without being the judgmental a******s we’ve become known as? With love. By thinking about what’s best for them. And how do we not be judgmental a******s to nonbelievers? With love. By thinking about what’s best for them. Remembering that they may not share the same beliefs. Remembering that no one particularly likes being told they’re wrong. Not even you.
I won’t claim I do those things right. I won’t even claim I’m close to getting these things right. I have to remind myself to be kind, I have to remind myself everyone around me is at a different point in their lives - everyone’s journey is different and odds are the people you meet on a daily basis are in a different place than you. I also have to remind myself that I can be wrong - odds are I could be corrected on multiple occasions throughout the day.
As always, I am but a work in progress.
Cheers.
