Category: Exegecis

“THOU SHALT NOT JUDGE!”

Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I heard someone issue this statement in an accusatory manner, I could be having someone else write these blogs for me.

In today’s world, it’s fashionable to feign outrage over the “disadvantages” of every unfortunate situation or perversion that exists – even those that don’t.  To that end, people LOVE to batter eachother with this most mis-quoted passage of the Bible.  To those people who haven’t actually read the Bible, this passage is supposed to convey that only God, Himself, is supposed to be able to judge others on their actions.

Malarkey.

Let’s start first by reading the ENTIRE actual passage in context, instead of cherry picking here:

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” – Matthew 7:1-5

Now, if you read that IN CONTEXT and in its entirety you see that this is referring to hypocritical judgement.  That’s right, take the mote out of your own eye before judging others.  So, does that mean you shoud not judge people?  Well, let’s see if the Bible further clarifies that (hint, it does).

“So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” – Matthew 8:7

Does Jesus say “don’t judge her”?  Or does he say don’t be in hypocritical judgement of her?  Don’t take her life for sinning because you, too, have sinned…

“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” – John 7:24

“Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly (did you judge them to be unruly??), comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.” – 1 Thes 5:14 – perens mine

“Prove all things (Judge them to not be evil); hold fast that which is good.” – 1 Thes 5:21 – perens mine

“Abstain from all appearance of evil.” – 1 Thes 5:22

Wow!  stay away from things that even LOOK evil – but how do you do that without somehow judging them?

“Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.” – Luke 17:3

Here we see that we are supposed to rebuke a brother going awry, but how do you do that without “judging” that the brother is doing wrong?

And there are SO many more examples than these few but I think the point has been made.  This is easily the most mis-quoted scripture I have heard and the one that pashaps has the most devestating consequences.  You see if you believe it is God’s will that you never judge another person’s wrongdoings, you are really endorsing and encouraging their sin (which God hates).  It’s important for you to watch for sinful activity and to rebuke your brother (or sister) when you see it.  And that means you *lovingly* but strongly point them back to God.

Remember, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” – John 7:24, and as always, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’.The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” – Mark 12:30-31

In our last post we delved into Which Denomination is the Right one? and we talked about several denominations but really left off on some of the more divisive information on the Protestant side.

We know from the last post that the Protestant Refpormation really started with Martin Luther, which started Lutheranism, but the rabbit hole goes way farther than that with many many protestant divisions. This time we are going to talk a little bit about probably the main division which is the Calvanism vs Armenianism argument.

Martin Luther was the man who paved the way for the reformation, but there were plenty pf people waiting in the wings to run with it once it started. One of the real notables in the “second wave” of reformers was a Frenchman by the name of John Calvin.

While Luther was a Priest, Calvin has been described as more of a professor or academic. He and Luther had some interesting theological differences like their stances on Transubstantiation (I’ll leve that one for you to look up for now) and Baptism, etc., but the real meat there was that John Calvin believed in Predestination.

What he means by Predestination is sumed up in one of the 5 points of Calvinism which is called “Unconditional election”. With this, John Calvin surmised that God has chosen from time eternal, who is going to be with him, and he will give mercy to those chosen people. Calvinism ended up being very prevalent in Denominations like the Presbyterians.

The converse theology in response to John Calvin’s theories are called Arminianism. Now Arminianism, as you might have guessed, was founbded by another early Protestant reformer. This time is was a Dutch fellow by the name of Jacobus Arminius. Now Jacobus’ name has been lost to most but people who study these theologies, however, one of his theologifcal successors is more well known, John Wesley, who chartered the very first Methodist church, that we are all familiar with today.

I mentioned before that there are more theological differences than just Predestination, and I’ll leave you to find them in the annals of the internet, but where does this leave you, the lay person? What do you or should you believe? How do you know without doing mass research, and, really, who has time do do all that anyhow?

Heh! Well, we are right back to the Bible. This theory and many more are all based on different passages in the Bible and how this person, or that person interpreted them at the time. While there are different interpretations in the Bible about ancilliary items, all the Protestant denominations agree on how to become saved and agree that information is in plain print in the Bible for all to see. The most wonderful part of the Bible, aside from that, though, are those passages that perhaps one person reads differently that another. It’s these magical passages that allow God to speak directly to us, individually, in our circumstances and in our spot in life. All you have to do is look!