Judge Not?

                          

"He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:7).
"Judge not least ye be judged" (Matt. 7:1).

Both of these statements were made by Jesus and both of these statements have been used to argue that people (or Christians, at least) should not judge the actions, lifestyles and belief systems of others. I however, do not think that Jesus is forbidding judging. If anything, he is cautioning against making quick and improper judgments.

The first quote comes from John's account of a test of Jesus. A group of Jewish, religious leaders try to test Jesus' knowledge of the Jewish law by bringing a woman before him that had been caught in adultery. According to Jewish law, the punishment for her actions was the death penalty. When Jesus responds with the above quote, the Jew leaders drop their stones and walk away. Jesus then turns to the woman, tells her she is free to go, but admonishes her to change her behavior.

What is interesting about this passage is that Jesus agrees with the Jewish leaders' judgment against the woman. By instructing her to, "go now and leave your life of sin" (John 8:11), he is agreeing with the Jewish leaders that she has done something wrong. He passes judgment on her as being a sinner.

The second quote is found in Jesus' famous, Sermon on the Mount. Our quote is located in the middle of the sermon and is the introductory statement on the issue of judging. Here is the passage in context:

Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For by the standard you judge you will be judged, and the measure you use will be the measure you receive. Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ while there is a beam in your own? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Do not give what is holy to dogs or throw your pearls before pigs; otherwise they will trample them under their feet and turn around and tear you to pieces. (Matthew 7:1-6, NET)

 When one sees the first statement in context, it becomes clear that Jesus is not condemning all judging. Jesus tells us to first judge ourselves so that we can clearly judge others. In fact, Jesus divides people into two groups-- 1) the those who possess that which is holy and 2) the dogs and pigs. Jesus excepts us to know the difference between the two groups. We should be able to say, "that dude is a pig" or "that dude is good." But doesn't this sound like judging to you?

Incidentally, Jesus makes another statement about judging which is also record in the book of John. Jesus says, "Do not judge according to appearance, but make a righteous judgement" (John 7:24). Here, the Jewish religious leaders and a crowd surrounding Jesus were making bad judgements about who he was and about the source of his miracles. They were particularly upset because Jesus had healed a man on the Sabbath, a sacred day set aside for the worship of God. Jesus rebukes them, not for judging him, but for making a judgement based on the wrong criteria. They were judging him based on how Jesus appeared. Jesus does not explicitly say what the correct criteria for judgement is here, but I suspect it has something to do with comparing his acts and message against the Messianic teachings of the Old Testament. Jesus expected those present to judge him correctly (i.e. righteously, properly, etc) as the promised Messiah. So, it seems like Jesus wants us to not only make ethical judgements, but we are also supposed to make religious ones as well.