Who are you to judge? Part 2

Here are 4 principles for proper judgment from the Bible.
"Judge not lest ye be judged" is not the complete story on judgment. In Matthew 7:1 Jesus said "Judge not that you be not judged, for with the judgment that you pronounce you will be judged." For most people, even Christians, these are the only verses in the Bible that they are aware of that speak directly towards judgment. In these verses Jesus is not forbidding all judgment but rather forbidding Christians from hypocritical judgment. He goes on to say in the following verses, "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."(7:5) He warns believers against our tendency to harshly judge the sin in others that we're deeply entrenched in.

The Bible doesn't forbid Christian people from identifying and opposing unjust actions in a proper manner. "Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him."(Prov 14:31) God's idea of justice has nothing to do with self-righteousness but is rather concerned with His name being honored by believers acting with integrity and uprightness. It has to do with the believer knowing what is right and learning to do what is right. This not only applies to the oppressed but it applies to fidelity to the message of Christ. Paul says in Galatians 2 that when he heard that the Apostle Peter was drawing back from the Gentiles in favor of fellowship with the Jews, Paul identifies this as "a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you". In response to Peter, Paul "opposed him to his face because he stood condemned." The Apostle Paul was not only willing "to remember the poor" and was eager to do it but believed that fidelity to the Gospel was the driving force of his desire to see justice take place. He felt so strongly about upholding the True Gospel that he was willing to go directly to Peter and confront him on his compromised lifestyle.

The Bible warns Christians against pride and feelings of superiority when they deal with the sin of unbelievers. The Bible says do not judge those outside the church. Clearly, the Bible warns believers not to apply God's expectation for holiness to unbelievers. "But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard or swindler- not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? .... God judges those outside (the church)." (1 Cor 5:11-13) We tend to want to exercise these verses differently. We tend to want to give believers a free pass when it comes to judgment and think ourselves superior to the world. Paul, says it must be the opposite. We can oppose sinful ideas and sinful people for the sake of the oppressed but we must guard against pride and superiority when doing it. I know the outcome of an unbelieving life but the ultimate judgment of the unbeliever will be levied by Christ (Acts 10:42) not by me.

It is good and right for believers to speak directly to each other about actions and attitudes that are sinful. This is good judgment. In Matthew 18 Jesus gives the believer a prescription for how to approach other believers who have sinned. In summary, it has to do with going to people personally with a desire to see them return to obedience in Christ. If going to them personally does not bring about repentance then Jesus calls the believer to bring along another believer and then to eventually involve the entire church body. 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 say "Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?.... Purge the evil person from among you." If you don't believe in the church disciplining it's members you'll need to go back and examine the message of Jesus and Paul. The Scriptures are painfully clear on this point. We, as believers, have a responsibility to confront one another in love because the reputation of Christ is at stake in the life of the Church and in the life of the individual believer. This is the proper judgment amongst believers. Many believe that actions like these are the absence of love but Jesus assures us that actions like these represent love. Jesus makes it clear that the actions of the church body, either to restore an individual or to put them out of the church, is the church attempting to agree with what heaven already knows about the individual. "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (if you think you have a better explanation of that verse, I'd genuinely like to hear it) It's caring about the soul of the individual.