Feb 16, 2009 7
When Christians Should and Should Not Judge
I’ve been studying judgment of late in scripture and have found it’s a rather complex subject. In trying to get a handle on it, I have broken down judgment into three rough categories. There’s a lot of gray and overlap, but this is the best sense I can make of it.
Judgment as Damnation/Condemnation
This is the kind of judgment that is reserved for God, in which Christians have no say and should not even speculate. A study of Jesus reveal he spent far more time telling people to believe and to enter the Kingdom, rather than saying point blank, “Turn or burn!” We are in a time of mercy where repentance is encouraged, let’s not jump the gun on the judgment part.
Judgment as Destructive Criticism
There are times when we evaluate and criticize the actions, words, or motives of others with the goal of tearing them down. Even if we claim to have good motives, carelessly judging others or paying no attention to our methods can be extremely destructive among both fellow believers and those who are not.
Judgment as Redemptive Discernment
While Jesus often shared strong critiques of the hypocritical leaders of his day, we do well to remember that we don’t carry the same kind of clout as Jesus. In fact, Jesus wants us to spend the bulk of our time evaluating ourselves, extracting planks from our own eyes. There are times when a rebuke of a fellow believer may be appropriate, but we will surely botch it if we haven’t spent the necessary time judging ourselves thoroughly. Paul also spends a great deal of time with the Corinthians helping them sort out immorality and judging those in blatant sin, however, even the most extreme cases aim for restoration in the end.
Final Thoughts
So these are my 3 categories on judgment. I’m grossly generalizing and there are obvious times when one kind can shift over to another, so I don’t harbor any illusions about these categories functioning as neat and tidy sections. Judgment is a tough issue, especially because we could point to any number of passages in scripture and use them to justify a certain kind of judgment. In the final conclusion, the guideline seems to be love one another and be merciful. If a Spirit-led believer cannot reconcile judging another with loving the same, then the best course of action is to reserve judgment.
