“Judge Not” and Why Christians Feel They Can’t Speak to Anything
“I don’t think it’s right to do— but I can’t judge.”
I listen again as another Christian friend makes this declaration. They’ve noticed something that’s wrong, but they feel they can’t SAY it’s wrong.
Why?
They’re Christian.
Christians can’t call evil what it is. Not in day-to-day life at least.
If we’re talking a mass shooter or the World Trade Center collapsing, then ok. You can call that wrong. But anything short of that is up for debate.
Scratch that. There is no debate because if you mention any sinful behavior you have to immediately announce that you can’t judge if it was sinful or not.
We’re supposed to pretend we don’t notice, or if we do notice, that we’re too stupid to know—that’s the game we’re supposed to play. Apparently, being a Christian is the call to being dumb about evil. Who knows what good is, who knows what is wrong. We’re right there with Pontius Pilot going, “What is truth?”
Who knows. We sure don’t.
How did we get here?
Bible verses that are taken out of context or Christians not knowing their Bibles at all, that’s my hunch.
The devil has worked in the same way since Adam and Eve. He took a little truth, a little bit of God’s Words, and then twisted them. He does the same today. The truth here is that we shouldn’t stand over people in judgement of them as if we are better than they are. We should not puff ourselves up by pointing out people’s sins like some kind of pride-boosting personal campaign. Nor should we talk behind their backs to damage their reputation. This means we shouldn’t elevate ourselves over people, nor should we condemn them as if we’re better than they are.
We aren’t better than anyone else. I’m reminded of the Bible passage about the woman caught in adultery. Jesus said, “You who are without sin, cast the first stone,” and nobody did. Nobody did because they recognized that they weren’t without sin. They weren’t any better than she was.
We are twisted and evil people, all the way deep down. We only know what is good because of God. The only good IN us is because of God. We wouldn’t even be following Him if it wasn’t for Him working in us. We owe everything to God.
That doesn’t mean however, that we can’t or shouldn’t identify evil or sin. We have two totally separate topics here, and the problem is that they’ve been joined together as if they’re one.
The fact you are a sinner, and the fact you aren’t perfect, doesn’t mean you aren’t able to know what sin is. There are many verses I could reference here, but for example, Paul writes in Ephesians 5, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” We know what sin is because God has clearly told us what sin is. He started telling us in Genesis and made it perfectly clear in the 10 Commandments, followed by all the rest of the 66 books of the Bible where sin is clearly outlined as sin and good is clearly outlined as good.
The Bible is packed full of God’s people being fearless to admit when behaviors were sinful –whether in other people or in themselves. This oftentimes led to their deaths as martyrs for the Faith. If they had kept their mouths shut about people’s behaviors, and simply proclaimed that God was Triune and that Jesus was the Savior of the world, probably fewer of them would have died. They did say that, but they also told people exactly what they were doing that was wrong and called them to repentance. This made people angry at them.
In the New Testament, the apostle Paul spent an enormous amount of time exhorting and encouraging Christians in their Christian walk. He reprimanded them when they sinned and taught them the ways of the Lord. He did not solely tell people what Jesus had done for them, although he ensured that was first and foremost what they learned. No, he ensured that the learning of Christ also produced fruit in keeping with repentance. He ensured that if a group of people were sinning or if specific people were sinning, he called that sin out for what it was. He didn’t go “You know that man who is sleeping with his father’s wife? I mean, I can’t judge, but seems like maybe that’s not a great idea? I dunno though. Can’t judge!”
You have a moral obligation actually, to call sin what it is and to do so in a loving way. This is actually why John the Baptist was beheaded. He told Herod it wasn’t lawful for him to have his brother’s wife. And from the way Scripture writes it, he didn’t just say it once either. “For John had been saying to Herod “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”[1]
Sure sounds to me like he said it repeatedly. Why? Because it’s loving to be honest, because God is bound to truth- the two are inseparable- and because Christians are called to be open about their knowledge. If something is wrong, we say so, because God has said so. We don’t say it on our own merit or worthiness but on Christ’s merit and worthiness. He taught us and we don’t have to act like He didn’t.
I am reminded of the Bible verse which says, “Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?”[2]
God knows we know what is right and that we know the way of the Lord. We need His help in following it daily, as we sin daily and much, and we show “mercy, mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh”[3] to those who are caught in sin.
This starts first with our children and extends in love and mercy to those around us. We can and should acknowledge the truth, and we need to be bold about teaching our children the truth about sin and its opposite— Christlike virtue— as God has intended.
[1] Mark 6:18
[2] Proverbs 24:11-12
[3] Jude 1:23