If there is one thing we do as humans, it is judge others. Research tells us that it takes just one-tenth of a second for people to judge someone and make a first impression. We then use our judgements to form how we engage a person. We live in a system in which everyone judges themselves and each other and creates a hierarchy of those above and below them. To judge another person is to ascribe worth to yourself at the expense of others. This minimizes your sins and faults, while maximizing the sins and faults of others. If you’ve ever said to yourself, “At least, I’m not as bad as that person (or group)” then you were likely playing the judgement game. Jesus says to us, “ ‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.”(7:1) Jesus is not talking about moral discernment of behaviours, but about how we view other people. As John Wesley said of this text, “The judging that Jesus condemns here is thinking about another person in a way that is contrary to love.” Ultimately, Jesus is inviting us to see people the way God’s sees people: with infinite love. This doesn’t mean we don’t discern behaviours as good or bad. It means we learn to go through the “plank-eye process” in which we view our own sin and failings as worse than others, which creates a humility that treats other sinners with mercy (cf. Gal. 6:1; Jas 2:13). Jesus is inviting his followers to quit the judgement game and live into a Kingdom society shaped not by condemnation but humility, love, and forgiveness.