Matthew 7 – to judge or not to judge…

We’ve reached Matthew 7 at last – it’s only taken us ten months!

Today we’re going to look at what is perhaps one of the most frequently quoted – but also most often misunderstood – passages in all of Jesus’ teaching.

Let’s read Matthew 7:1-5: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 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.”

Misquoting Jesus

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had this passage quoted at me by people within my own church community and outside – even if they usually only quote the first few words. “Do not judge” or “Judge not” are frequently the first line of defence from people who don’t think that Christians should ever call out ungodly behaviour on the part of others.

There is always a temptation to allow the beliefs and values of the culture we live in to spill over into our own thinking as Christians. In a society like modern Britain (and perhaps, to a greater or lesser extent, other Western nations) the primary virtue in human life is often considered to be “tolerance” – that is, to respect other people’s opinions and lifestyles without criticism or condemnation.

To think that you can tell someone else that their views on a certain issue are wrong, or that you can tell them what to do in a certain situation, is seen as a major social transgression. Human autonomy is seen as sacred – taking away someone else’s ability to choose seems to be about the worst thing you can do in the modern West.

That’s the prevailing view of the culture around you (assuming you live in the West). Unfortunately, that view is unconsciously adopted by many people who identify as Christians.

What should we do?

Let me be absolutely clear: Christians SHOULD call out unacceptable behaviour or incorrect beliefs they see in other people. However, there are times and circumstances when it is not appropriate for us to do this.

Jesus gave instructions on how this ought to be done in Matthew 18:15-17: If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’  If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

There are several important points to note here.

First, it should be done privately – at least to begin with. Calling out someone in front of others, or at a church gathering, or in a non-private space on social media, should not happen – at least not in the first instance.

Second, you should be persistent. If the person ignores your admonition, you should not simply shrug your shoulders and forget about it. Jesus did not advise a “live and let live” policy in this context. He listed three further steps of escalation, with the final step being the most serious of all, namely considering yourself to no longer be in Christian fellowship with the person in question. That would be an incredibly serious step to take and it should NEVER be taken lightly.

Third, your motivation should be pure. Although Jesus didn’t say so explicitly here, the purpose of the process he described is not so that you can win the argument (even if you’re right). It’s not so that you can extract an apology from someone (even if they owe you one).

The purpose of this process of calling out sin or error in someone else should ALWAYS be their salvation. We should call out other people – regardless of whether their sin or error affects us personally – because we want them to be in the Kingdom of God.

Not because we want to humiliate them or have control over them. Not because we want to gain political power within the church and enforce our views on other people. Rather, because we want them to recognise their error and turn to God in repentance, so that they can be forgiven and change their ways for the better – and ultimately, receive eternal life.

Hmm…

Perhaps you agree with that or perhaps you’re still feeling uncomfortable. Let’s think about it another way.

Remember Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast, which concluded thus (Matthew 22:10-14): “…so the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are invited, but few are chosen.“

This parable describes a man who’d heard the invitation to the wedding feast but had turned up just as he was, without making any special preparations for this grand event. In our context, we might imagine this to refer to someone who’s heard the message of Jesus and wants to be part of it, but has never actually made any effort to absorb Jesus’ teaching or change his/her life accordingly.

Now in the parable, the man was recorded as being speechless, but allow me to present you with a hypothetical alternative. Suppose you were there, at that wedding feast, among the guests, wearing your wedding clothes. Among those guests, however, is someone you know, and they’re not dressed for the wedding. Now further suppose that when Jesus asked that person “How did you get in here without wedding clothes?”, that person – instead of being speechless – turned and pointed at you and said “He/she never told me I needed any!”

How would you feel as you watched that person being thrown out into the darkness to weep and gnash their teeth? Would you be pondering all the times you could have said something? Would you be counting all the opportunities you had to call them out, but you never did so?

That’s what’s at stake here. A person’s eternal life could hang in the balance, and you or I could be the only person who’s able, in a certain situation, to give another Christian the warning they need.

That’s what our motivation SHOULD be. It is, of course, INCREDIBLY easy to call people out and criticise them with less pure motivations in your heart, and yet convince yourself that you’re doing the Lord’s work.

Hypocrisy

It’s also incredibly easy to call out someone for a particular sin or mistake, while refusing to admit that the same sin – or one very much like it – exists in your own life. That’s what Jesus was warning against in these first verses of Matthew 7.

His instruction was not that we should never judge others, but that we should not do it hypocritically.

Human nature being what it is, we are generally far more attuned to noticing faults in other people than we are faults (even if it’s EXACTLY the same fault) in ourselves.

So not only does your motivation need to be pure, entirely focussed on the other person’s salvation, but you should first examine yourself to check whether you need to call yourself out on that particular issue before raising it with someone else.

It’s not unheard of for people who take a “crusading” attitude towards a particular sin or heresy within their church to eventually be exposed as the ultimate perpetrator of it in their own lives. Sometimes when we really don’t want to face up to our own failings, we can have a tendency to “project” them on to others, to aggressively call out that particular failure in our brothers and sisters in church, as a coping mechanism for our inability to admit our own culpability.

For example, a man or woman who rails about the wickedness of adultery and comes down harshly on anyone whose marriage breaks apart for whatever reason, may one day be exposed as having cheated on their husband/wife with multiple other people over a long period of time.

That’s why Jesus warned that you’ll be judged by the same standards with which you have judged others.

Hypocrisy in reverse

Now it’s possible to take this too far in the other direction. Some people seem to automatically assume that ANY time a Christian calls out sin in someone else, they’re secretly projecting their own faults or desires. For example, if a man were to say that same-sex relationships aren’t acceptable for a Christian, some people might conclude he was only saying that because of his own secret homosexual urges he couldn’t cope with.

This type of cynicism is just as damaging as the hypocritical crusading attitude that can come in the other direction.

We need to consider our attitude from both ends of this particular exchange.

If you see sin in someone else, don’t call it out unless you are certain that your motivation is pure: namely to encourage that person to repentance so that they can receive eternal life.

Don’t call it out unless you are certain that you’ve examined your own life and determined whether you need to repent of it yourself first.

And if you decide you’re in an appropriate position to call it out, remember the steps Jesus instructed us to follow in Matthew 18.

If you’re on the other end of the exchange, and someone else is calling out sin in you, don’t be cynical and assume hypocrisy or bad motives on their part. It may be that they are genuinely motivated by love and a desire to see you in eternity.

Examine yourself honestly, in the light of Jesus’ teachings and example, and ask if there is anything in you that needs to change. Repent of anything you’ve done wrong. Don’t let pride get in the way. Don’t feel as if the other person will ‘win’ the argument or have power over you if you admit that you were wrong.

The world around us may tell you that the loving thing to do is to stand back and respect other people’s autonomy and let them make their own choices.

Yet if you’re a Christian, the most loving thing to do is whatever will help a brother or sister reach the Kingdom of God.

Leaving a brother or sister in sin, when you could have warned them, is one of the least loving things a Christian can do.