Do Not Judge

     “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. (Matthew 7:3-5)

 “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. (Matthew 18:15-17) 

If you’ve been around the religious block a time or two, you’ve probably met some folks who love to get in people’s faces with the first verse and follow up with accusations about the plank in the eye of the person they’re accusing. If they are aware of no other plank, they’ll fall back on the obvious one, that the person they’re accusing is judging. But the key here is that they are doing precisely what the passage talks about – they are judging the person they’re accusing of something that they, themselves, are doing.

To put it simply, this passage was never meant to be a weapon for one sinful person to use against another. That is a toxic behavior. Jesus’ rebuke was meant for each of us, and He followed the beginning of the quote with its end, which states that once we have dealt with our own sin, we can help others with theirs, with the key word being "help."

If the goal of telling someone about their sin is to put them in their place, you’re on the plank side. If your goal is to help them, you may or may not be on the plank side. That would depend in part on how you handle it. Are you in a public place? Is your voice raised? If so, you’re not handling it in a Biblical way. 

In Ezekiel 3, God tells Ezekiel that if he does not speak up about someone’s sin, he will be held responsible for what happens as a result.  But again, this isn’t about putting the person in their place; it’s about saving the person from their place. Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves and to love our enemies. That means we have to speak and act in their best interest.

The second passage above, also made by Jesus, tells us that we are supposed to tell those within the Church who are sinning that they are sinning. The first time, we tell them in private. The second time, we take two or three elders with us. The third time, we take it to the Church. All of that is a little hard to do if we “judge not.”