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You
Must Judge Others. Most of the scripture passages dealing with judging tell us to “judge” or “evaluate
others.” We are commanded to evaluate false teachers. Otherwise,
you would not know they are false teachers. Today, many Christians are
willing to believe a person who has a charismatic personality, is funny,
or is eloquent. But this is not the criteria for truth. To determine
if someone is a false teacher, we must evaluate what he or she is saying
(Matt. 7:15-20; 2 John 9-11). We are also told to seriously evaluate
the life style of our spiritual leaders (1 Tim. 3:1-12; Titus 1:5-9).
We are encouraged to reject an argumentative person (Titus 3:10) and
a lazy person (2 Thess. 3:6-13). We are commanded to help other Christians
who are sinning to stop sinning (Matt. 18:15-20; Gal. 6:1; 2 Tim. 2:16-18).
We are required to evaluate one another objectively, fairly and with
balance.
Matthew 7:1 is not about not evaluating others, but is about unjust criticism.
The root Greek word that Jesus used for “judge” is KRINO. It
is a simple word meaning “to divide out, to sift, resolve, to determine,
and to judge.” Our modern day word “critic” gives the right
idea. It has the idea of an unfair evaluation. The word Jesus uses is simple
in its meaning. There are no surprises.
Jesus’ Illustrations. Jesus’ illustrations actually explain what
He is trying to say. His first one is,
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,’ when all the time there is 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. (NIV) Matt. 7:3-5 This illustration requires us to “evaluate” another person.
How else can we determine that one has a speck in his eye? But Jesus
warns us to be careful when we evaluate false teachers, church leaders,
lazy people, argumentative individuals and sinning Christians. Before
we evaluate another person, we need to check ourselves out first. He
may only have a speck in his eye while you have a beam of wood in your
eye. Jesus did not warn us to not evaluate others. He called us to evaluate
others with equity.
Jesus’ second illustration really makes His point very clear,
Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces. (NIV) Matt. 7:6 We need to ask ourselves this question, “How can we determine
that someone is a “dog” without evaluating others? Jesus
is not saying “Stop evaluating others!”
In those times, the Jews regarded dogs and swine as unclean or unholy.
So He is referring to those who reject and trample on God’s Word
and our righteous acts. Two great examples of this are found in Acts
13:45-46 and Acts 18:6. In both situations, Paul was telling some Jews
about Jesus. They not only rejected the message of truth; they started
blaspheming and contradicting and resisting the message! They were trampling
the message of truth - a holy pearl which is of great value! A secondary
meaning to this illustration can be found in 2 John 10 where we are commanded
not to receive a false teacher into our home nor to give him a greeting.
Conclusion. For non-Christians, the message of both Matthew 7:2 and Romans
2:1-16 is serious. When Jesus says the “measure we use to evaluate
others is the measure He will use against us,” He means that God
will some day use the non-Christians’s standard for evaluating
others to evaluate them - to send them to hell!
As a Christian, I thank Jesus that my sins are forgiven. I thank Him that the unkind criteria, the
insulting thoughts, the uninformed opinions, that impatient standard that I have used against others
will never be used against me. Thank you Jesus for forgiving me in spite of myself! I sure do not
deserve it . . .
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| Sermon on the Mount | |||||