Time to Judge: a Biblical Perspective on Judging Others

There's a great song by the Byrds, "Turn! Turn! Turn!" based on a great poem in the Bible. Thanks to the Byrds, many people memorized part of the Bible without even knowing it, including me.

"A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep..."

A time to judge isn't mentioned, but maybe it should be.

We are surrounded by a culture that preaches tolerance. We are told not to judge others. We are told not to be prejudice.

The church is often accused of being the most intolerant and judgmental group.

There is a biblical precedent for us to follow. There is a balanced approach. There is hope.

First, I agree that as a people, we need to see ourselves as part of a group that includes not excludes others. The more we can embrace one another as one of "Us" and not push one another away as one of "Them" the more this world will witness the love of God penetrating into our society.

All not some. Impartiality not favoritism.

Though, we all make judgments all the time. It is a necessary social skill. We judge others based on appearance, based on their ability to communicate, based on our relationship to them, based on their position of perceived power.

It is right and good and helpful to judge in some ways. I will not begin to address the plethora of examples that exist when judging others is wrong. I will only address one general principal and then focus on how to judge others when we are given the responsibility to do so. 

A Biblical Perspective on Judging Others

If we see the Bible as a guide to teach us how to model our lives, then judging others is part of our responsibility. Part of our responsibility is to...

Judge others as an expression of God's love.

Let me say that again to let it sink in...

Judge others as an expression of God's love.

Here's the explanation and please let me know what you think in the comments. Let's work through this together.

Matthew 7:1-5- “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

Jesus is pretty clear, "Do not judge so that you may not be judged."

But, then, he seems to suggest that we will all judge. "For with the judgment you make you will be judged."

In other words, He is expecting us to judge others and it is the way we judge others that we need to be concerned about.

"And the measure you give will be the measure you get", so we need to choose a measure that is appropriate for judging.

And, we need to "first take the log out of [our] own eye, and then [we] will see clearly to take the speck out of [our] neighbor’s eye."

So, we need to be humble. We need to examine ourselves and deal with our own sin. Then, still humbled, we can assist our neighbor with the speck of sin that is causing them pain and if left uncared for could cause them disease or loss of sight.

Humbly, out of concern for our neighbor, we can offer to help them by judging them in love.

Romans 2 faces the same question from another angle.

Romans 2:1-6 - Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, “We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.” Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds.

First, God judges "in accordance with the truth." End of story. He is the only one who knows the whole truth, everything.

We judge based on partial truth at best. At worst, we judge based on gossip and lies and manipulation.

Second, we, too will be judged. Again, this reminds us to be humble and use a measure that we would choose for our own judgment.

Third, we will be judged based on our deeds. We will be judged based on our actions, our words, our lives.

For those of you who are accustomed to the Gospel, salvation through faith by grace, this may seem contradictory. But, it is not. We will be judged based on our deeds and it will be found that

There is no one who is righteous, not even one; 
    there is no one who has understanding,
        there is no one who seeks God. - Romans 3:10-11

We all need grace and mercy. This is the measure that we must use when judging others.

This may lead us to decide: "Forget it! I am just not going to judge anyone ever!"

Judging Is Loving

1 Corinthians specifically addresses when we must judge. If we are to love, then we must judge. To not judge, is to not love.

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 - I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons— not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging those outside? Is it not those who are inside that you are to judge? God will judge those outside. “Drive out the wicked person from among you.”

We are not to avoid immoral people, in order to do so, we would have to "go out of the world." That would preclude us from bringing God's love to the world.

We are to avoid spending time with immoral people who "[bear] the name brother or sister", who claim to be followers of Christ.

We are not to judge "those outside".

We are only to judge those "inside". We are to "drive out the wicked person from among [us]."

This is key. We are not to judge the world, it's actions, it's laws, it's immorality, it's sin, it's customs, it's traditions, it's anything. We are not to judge.

What good would it do anyway?

If someone does not know Christ and is not thinking about Christ, why would he or she care what God thinks about their actions.

Ask them. They don't care.

The opportunity we have is to show them the love of Christ through our words and actions. We are to be Christ's ambassadors, to bring light to the darkness, be salt of the earth, fishers of men and women. Whatever picture works for you. That is our responsibility and privilege.

We are not to judge those in the world. We are to love them.

Now, about those who call themselves brother or sister.

We must judge them. Why?

God's judgment is always for the same purpose. Look back at Romans 2:4 - "Do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"

God's judgment and his kindness and his wrath and everything else that God does "is meant to lead [us] to repentance." When we judge others without love, without grace, without mercy, we are demonstrating that we despise his kindness.

We despise his kindness to us, forgetting how He has forgiven our sin.

We despise his kindness to others, forgetting that God's judgment is designed to lead them to repentance.

Matthew 18 concludes that if we attempt to address sin in the life of someone we love and are rejected, and then we bring a couple of elders and are rejected again, and then make the situation public to the whole church and still are rejected, then we are to treat the person as if they were an unbeliever.

In other words, if we humble ourselves, judge someone else in love, hoping to lead them to repentance for their benefit, and we do everything that the love of Christ compels us to do and they choose not to repent --- then we treat them as if they are not a brother or sister, not part of the church.

We treat them like they are of the world.

Which does not mean that we continue to judge them and condemn them and gossip about them.

It means that we no longer judge them. We stop judging them because we are not to judge those of this world.

It means that we love them with the love of Christ. It means that we go out of our way to show them God's love and kindness in hopes that it will lead them to repentance.

Judge others as an expression of God's love.

Judging others this way is obviously difficult and takes much love and time and commitment. It can only be done in relationship. Take heart. It can be done.

By the grace of God, it can be done.
Because this is the will of God, it can be done.

"There is a time to judge and time to withhold judgment."

The 6 Key Relationships We All Need

Just about everyone wants their children to follow in their spiritual footsteps, to believe and trust the God or gods that they believe in.

We try jumping through religious hoops, ceremonies and rituals in order to be good role models,[1] but it's just not working.[2]

A fellow blogger, Marc, did dozens of interviews with 20-somethings from the college town where he lives. He compiled the ten reasons our kids leave the church.

My research, interviews done with young adults who grew up in church, turned up 6 key relationships in life. Recognizing and cultivating these six relationships will allow someone to maintain spiritual health and continue to grow spiritually throughout their lives.

It also happens to be the key to keeping our kids from graduating from a relationship with Christ when they graduate from high school.

Each of these relationships could be expounded upon in a book of its own, but just to get you started, here they all are:

Relationship #1 - The most influential relationship one has growing up is with their parents. This relationship can influence our actions well into adulthood and even after our parents' deaths.

For years, Lauren (all names changed to protect their identities) tried to meet up to the standards that she thought her parents had for her. In her thirties now, after therapy and an understanding husband, she has learned to recognize the role her parents have had in her life. Now, she is on a journey to live her life out of love for God and those around her rather than out of a compulsive need to meet a standard that she felt her parents had placed on her.

Bill, on the other hand, remembered his mom taking in a teenager who had no place to stay. “He had no place to go. It wasn’t like my Mom said, ‘Okay I’ll pray for you.’ She said, ‘Come live with us’ and she treated him like another son. That helped teach me what grace was about.” When his mom sacrificed time, gave up her Bible, and talked about Christ, the Jewish woman she had met at the nail salon accepted Christ as her Savior. After Bill moved out of the house, he looked back on the example his parents had set and saw how God wanted him to live his life.

The role of parents cannot be overestimated. Regardless of whether their influence was good or bad, how we face that reality can have either a positive or negative impact on all of our other relationships.

Relationship #2 - The relationship we have with our parents can be supplemented by other significant adults. They can reinforce the positive attributes of our parents and serve to fill in the gaps, sometimes quite significant gaps, when necessary.

These significant adults might be a coach or teacher, a grandparent, aunt or uncle, a pastor or friend from church. Whoever they are, we rely on them when we don't feel like we can rely on our parents.

Christina put it clearly when she said, "[He] was somebody I looked up to and respected and connected to. While it didn’t matter what I did and it didn’t matter what he said or thought, he was somebody that I could sit down and have a conversation with about God or not about God. He listened and he cared and for a long time when I was fighting the whole being a Christian or not being a Christian and is it worth going through all of this. He was definitely somebody that would listen to everything I had to say, good or bad." 

Other significant adults are people that we look to for acceptance and wisdom. People that we can be completely honest and open with.

Relationship #3 - Our relationship with peers begin becoming influential in our adolescent years. That's not new. But, the reality is, these relationships can give us the courage to take risk and explore the boundaries that life gives us.

As a parent, we usually want to stop our children from taking risks. But, taking risks is critical to personal growth and development.

Danielle recalled one time when she went with a friend to a church that had a female pastor. In her church tradition, pastors could never be women. That would be “scandalous”! Her parents allowed her to go and so she took a friend along for support. As a result, she felt like her faith “was more or less up to me and I think that helped that I had friends that were like, ‘Yeah, let’s go do that. Let’s go to a Christian concert that isn’t hymns.’” Her friends gave her courage to take risks and explore her faith.

While parents can provide us a secure foundation and significant adults can offer us acceptance without condemnation, peers who share a similar faith and worldview can give us the courage to explore, question and doubt.

Relationship #4 - Our relationship to our self, or our search for our identity is the next key relationship. Any or all of the first three relationships may have been lacking or completely missing (and that too can be faced in the grace of Christ.) But, everyone has oneself.

There are two forces which drive us as we seek to become an individual. The first is the desire to belong. We long for the experience of being loved and accepted and connected with another that makes us feel important and desirable. The second is the drive toward autonomy. The desire to be free of outside expectations and constraints. The captain of one's own ship.

We often vacillate between these two extremes trying to strike some kind of balance. The reality is we need to push both to the extremes and find our place in the tension.

Christina found that it was easier to be herself with her friends that she made at the bar then it was to be herself at church. It was only after she left the church that she was able to believe, "I am a good person." Similar to each of the other interviewees, she found it difficult to be honest with those in church. She felt judged and therefore was unwilling to be open about her feelings and struggles. “I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t feel like I have to go to church just to make people happy. Where I don’t care if somebody says, ‘Wow your daughter is not a very good person because she doesn’t go to church anymore.’ I don’t care. I am who I am.” 

In order to grow and develop in our relationship to our self, we have to be willing to be ourselves and enter into relationships without anxiety about how they may perceive us.

Until you don't need the relationship in order to feel good about yourself, you will never truly enjoy the the person you are with.

Relationship #5  - Our relationship to God. I am a Christian, so I believe that this, too, is a universal relationship that we all must cultivate. But, I realize that not all people do. So, if it helps you to conceive of this as your relationship to the unseen forces of the universe, a higher power, this is still relevant for you.

God tends to communicate to us in different ways based on His specific relationship to us. If we are open to hearing form him through the Bible, he teaches us in those pages. If we are open to hearing him in the silent times of our prayer, he speaks. If we are more of the dreams and visions type, we will find him there. Granted, sometimes he speaks to us in ways that we aren't as comfortable with too. But, He is faithful and will speak to us in ways that we can hear.

The way to have a healthy relationship with God is to respond to Him with truth and love. He continues to extend grace and love to us day after day. Whether it is the poem, Footprints in the Sand, or the song, Amazing Grace, the way we respond to Christ's love for us allows us to face life with a clear understanding of reality.

Our initial response to Christ might be disbelief or full acceptance, but He continues to draw us to Himself. We can respond by accepting our own sinfulness, confessing it and receiving His grace and forgiveness. In acknowledging His death and resurrection and our need for salvation, we begin a mutual relationship with the God who planned for our birth and every aspect of our lives.

A relationship with Christ can often become the most influential relationship in our lives. It can fill the gaps left by all of the other relationships in our lives and propel us with purpose into the 6th key relationship.

Relationship #6 - Our relationship to the world around us. The circumstances in our lives that leave us reeling in pain or rolling on the floor in laughter. The interaction that we have with those whom we consider to be "other". As we grow up and grow in depth of our soul, the number of people whom we consider to be different or "other" shrinks. We begin to see ourselves as more similar than dissimilar to those around us.

As we wrestle with why bad things happen to us or possibly even why good things happen, we have a choice to make. How will we see the world? A place to escape from, hide from, or survive. Or a place to enter into with purpose and a mission. People to engage with love and grace or people to distance ourselves from in fear and anxiety.

These 6 key relationships are relevant for all of us, all people for all time.

We need to make some choices. We can choose to face the reality of the relationships we have and choose to build those that we can.

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[1] Chris J. Boyatzis, David C. Dollahite, and Loren D. Marks, “The Family as a Context for Religious and Spiritual Development in Children and Youth” in The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, eds. Eugene C. Roehlkepartain et al., (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 2005), 301–2.

[2] The Barna Group, “Most Twentysomethings Put Christianity on the Shelf Following Spiritually Active Teen Years,” The Barna Group, September 11, 2006, http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/16-teensnext-gen/147-most-twentysomethings-put-christianity-on-the-shelf-following-spiritually-active-teen-years (accessed October 8, 2011).