What You’ve Been Searching For

How Christians Should Judge

Why are Christians so judgmental? You’re judging me now for the shirt I’m wearing. I’m judging my cameraman for his man bun. Everybody’s judgy, judgy, judgy pants these days. Why are Christians so judgmental, or is that a bad thing, really? Let’s talk about it. This is Joel Fieri. This is What You’ve Been Searching For. Stay tuned.

We’re talking about the scariest verses in the Bible. If you caught last week’s podcast, you know I talked about in 1 Corinthians, the scary verses about taking communion, and if you take communion in the wrong way, you might get sick or even die. But if you caught that podcast, you also know that context is everything. In the context of that passage, we’re more concerned with how you are taking communion in relation to other people. Are you hogging the resources? Are you getting drunk while they go hungry? Do you see yourself as better than other Christians? That’s the real issue.

Here’s another verse that doesn’t necessarily scare Christians. Sometimes it does, but I think it intimidates us more than anything. I’m talking about Matthew 7, verses one through five, the “judging others” passage that’s often thrown back at us as Christians when we try and assert Christian morality.

In Matthew 7, Jesus is talking and he says, starting in verse one, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” We usually stop there, or at least the people that come at us with this verse usually stop there. But there’s much more. “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye, and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take that speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there’s a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite. First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Now, there’s a couple of different ways I want to look at this. First of all, as I mentioned, a lot of times we just stop with verse one, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged,” and that’s where we ended. In the same way also, as the verse goes on, we also tend to focus just on the “log in your own eye” issue. Say, “Don’t judge others, worry about yourself. Take care of your own sin and don’t be so judgmental of other people.” But that’s not what this verse is saying.

It actually has both aspects to it, but there’s one more aspect that people don’t like to focus on. What Jesus is saying here is, don’t be hypocritical in your judgment. Earlier in chapter 6, he was talking about all the things that we shouldn’t be hypocritical about when we come into the house of God. Our giving, or our praying, or our worshiping. We shouldn’t be hypocritical and think we’re doing it better than anyone else.

What he’s saying here is, don’t judge thinking you’re better than anyone else. Don’t use your standard. Don’t put yourself in the position of judging or being the judge of other people. Use God’s judgment. That’s born out as he goes on and talks about the log or the plank in your own eye.

In verse three, he says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye, and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,