Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged!

"Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged! Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged!"

Tell a sinner they are a sinner, and here it comes, like clockwork: "Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged!" The one line from one verse of the bible they know by heart. This is the squeaking of a guilt conscience.

Don't let it get to you.

If they would read and obey the rest of the book, you wouldn't have occasion to call to their attention the error of their ways, and they wouldn't have to parrot this line back to you like it means something. When someone says "Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged!" it is usually about as weighty as "I'm OFFENDED!" and you should be about as strongly affected by it, if you are in the right (i.e., not at all).

Consider: The apostle (Saint) Paul wrote the following to the Christians at Corinth (1 Corinthians 5):

1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
3 For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

This is for the Christian who is messing up. A fellow Christian should point out the error of his ways.

But VFD, that's not what we're talking about

Sure it's not. We're talking about "Judge not lest ye be judged" right? Okay, here's the context. The Lord Jesus was telling people how to be. Matthew 7 is part of a moderately lengthy discourse by God himself to what was described as "multitudes" of people in Chapter 5. There were probably all stripes of people on the hillside that day listening to Jesus speak. He knew that there would be hypocrites among them, when he said:

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 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?
5 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.

Here is why you shouldn't be cowed by this bit of verbal judo: It does not apply to you. Jesus was talking to Hypocrites here, not the righteous. If you tell your co-worker who split his head on the floor because he was falling-down drunk last night, that he ought not to drink and he comes back with "judge not lest ye be judged" he is taking the verse out of context.

If you weren't drunk on the stool next to him, he is wrong. Not you. You knew that already. Now you know why.