"Judge Not" Does Not Mean "Disconnect Thy Brain"

As a pastor, I have noticed that many people who have absolutely no use for the Bible, and don't ever intend to live one moment of their lives as though they do, know one verse of the Bible verbatim: No, it's not John 3:16, it's Matthew 7:1, "Judge not, that you be not judged."

I find that, almost without exception, any time I express a view on a moral or political issue in public (here on my blog, for instance), someone is ready to say, "you're not acting very Christian, pastor--doesn't the Bible say 'judge not, that you be not judged?'" Usually this is said rather sneeringly, as though by being able to parrot one verse of Scripture, they have shown me to be the fraud and hypocrite that I am.

But what does the whole passage say? Verse 2 says, "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." What Jesus is saying is not that Christians are not to use judgment...what He's saying is that we must be careful in being discerning and using judgment, because we are judged in all the areas we judge others.

To think that this means otherwise, or to believe it gives ammunition to those who have the "anything goes" mentality so prevalent in the world today is sheer idiocy. If Jesus literally meant "never judge anything," then Christians would be well-advised to start eating handfuls of dirt instead of food, since we can't judge that one thing is good to eat over another. Or maybe we could just all rise up in anarchy, since I would have no way to "judge" whether laws are good or bad, or apply to me or not.

So to all of you who come here armed with only Matthew 7:1, please don't bother--you just demonstrate your own foolishness every time you try that ploy here. My brain is turned on and working fine, and I still call 'em as I see 'em.