Bible Mythbusters: Judge Much? (Matthew 7:1-12)

It’s not what you think

I don’t know if you heard about this story, but last week a grandmother in Tennessee caused a stir when it was revealed that she filed a $10-million dollar lawsuit against a police department in North Dakota. Apparently, a year ago, she was babysitting her grandkids in Tennessee when she was arrested for robbing banks in North Dakota earlier in the year. She spent 6 months in jail, was finally flown to North Dakota to face the charges. She was finally released when police in Tennessee finally pulled bank records that indicated she had never been in North Dakota during the time frame of the robberies. 50-year-old Angela Lipps, come to find out, had never been to North Dakota in her life and had never been on an airplane, until the extradition. In those 6 months she was in jail, she lost her house, her job, and her car. The lawsuit says it all came down to an AI face recognition program that somehow picked her face from an ID… a face that looked completely different from the surveillance cameras in the banks that she had supposedly robbed. All of this because a program made a judgment call… a judgment that was confirmed by a detective in Fargo.

Judgment gone very wrong. That’s what we all fear. It actually came true for Angela Lipps. But we fear being judged incorrectly. Some of the funniest TV shows and thriller movies play off of that fear… the fear of getting the wrong guy. The fear of being in a situation where we are completely misjudged. Sitcoms make a living off of that fear.… “it’s not what it looks like”… that trope is a universal in sitcoms and romcoms… one of the most famous is this bit from Seinfeld where a mother sees George eating from a trash can...

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The mother concludes that George is homeless after seeing him eating out of the trashcan. That plays into our fears of being misjudged. Nobody wants to be misjudged… the rest of the episode is pure comedy with the misjudging at the heart of it.

But here’s the irony… and what today’s Bible mythbuster is about… we have this fear, because we all do it. We are experts at quickly judging people over the barest of facts. In fact, don’t let mere facts get in the way of a good story… we’ve all heard that. We are quick to judge… we are quick to defend our right to judge. We are quick to summon the Bible in our defense of judging.

You can’t judge me

All of this is in play with today’s Bible mythbuster. This is week #4 of our series… and in my informal poll of pastors in preparing for this series.. almost all of them had this verse high on their lists. It’s a verse we’ve all heard...

Matthew 7:1 Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.

In fact, if we were to poll our neighbors and friends, even ones who don’t go to church, my bet is if we asked them to quote any verse in the Bible, it would be this one...even before John 3:16. Matthew 7:1 is arguably the most quoted, most weaponized, and most misunderstood verse in the entire Bible. People reach for it the way you reach for a stop sign — to bring a conversation to a screeching halt. Someone raises a moral concern, and out comes the hand: “Didn’t Jesus say don’t judge?” Conversation over. It’s a gotcha moment. You like quoting Jesus. I’ll quote you Jesus… Jesus said stop judging me. “Don’t judge.” Don’t get judgey with me. And if there’s a complaint against Christians, it’s their too judgey… and then out comes this verse.

Mythbusting 2 myths

The pop culture understanding of this verse is a myth. We’ll get to that. But along the way… there’s a second, persistent even more damaging myth Christians get from this passage that we will also address.

I’ll put these two myths right up front so we can see them and then address them:

Myth #1: This verse means you can’t judge me.

Myth #2: This entire passage means not only can I judge you, I will judge you.

Both are myths. Both are abusing this text. So what is this text really saying?

MYTH #1 — “JUDGE NOT” MEANS: NEVER MAKE A MORAL JUDGMENT ABOUT ANYTHING

We’ve all heard this. Probably several times even in the last year. The world's version goes like this: "judge not" means nobody gets to call anything right or wrong, ever, about anything. All truth claims are equally valid. And the moment somebody says " yeah, no — I think that's actually wrong," — well then, they've broken the one command Jesus totally said straight up with no context. Right?

Except… that’s not what he really says.

Matthew 7:2 “For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use.”

For… or Because… Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged… because you’re going to be judged by the same standard with which you judge others. You’re going to get the same treatment. And if you claim that treatment doesn’t apply to you… well...that’s just being hypocritical.

And as if to make the point… Jesus gives us a comical example:

Matthew 7:3–4 “Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a beam of wood in your own eye?

It’s very easy to miss how ridiculous the joke is. Picture this. Your buddy has a tiny splinter in his eye. “Ow. There's something in my eye.” And you walk over. “Hold still. I see it.” Except you've got a roof beam sticking out of your face. Not another splinter. A beam. Not a stick. A big fat piece of timber. And you're swinging that thing around saying: “Come here. Let me take a look at your eye.” That's funny. Jesus wants it to be funny. Profoundly funny. Because somehow this guy can detect a speck in somebody else's eye while remaining completely unaware of the lumber sticking out of his own.

But that’s not the real problem with this verse. Because there is a context to what Jesus is saying about “don’t judge”, Christians have taken to dismissing the verse entirely as applying to them. Because the claim is… well, once I get the log out of my eye, I’m free to judge the next guy. That’s the get-out-of-jail-free card for Christians when it comes to judging. No log here. I’m free to judge.

Back to the two myths:

Myth #1: You can’t judge me.

Myth #2: Not only can I judge you, I will judge you.

And I firmly believe that the second myth is a bigger problem than the first. And I think The Table must be a place where people who have been burned by the second myth can find a safe place and a home. Myself included. I can’t say this strongly enough.

In the rush to dismiss the first myth, too many Christians and too many churches create all sorts of judging loopholes. When someone in a conversation tells me that you Christians are too judgey, they’re absolutely right.

The loophole: I’ve dealt with my log. So yeah, I can judge you.

Because here's what gets said instead. "I know I have a log — I dealt with mine a long time ago." Or the more dangerous version: "I don't really have one. Not like that." “We're all sinners. I know that. I've repented of my sins. I've dealt with my log. So now I can see clearly enough to talk about his or hers.”

We treat this passage as if it’s a certification process. Step One: get rid of the log. Step Two: Here’s your certificate that makes you an official inspector of the specks in other people’s eyes. Now that the log is gone… the judging business is now open.

The whole thing is warped. Here’s where the myth just takes off: the log here is not sin. If I deal with my sin first, then I am free to talk about everybody else’s sin. The log isn’t sin. It’s a condition. It’s a posture. It’s not a one time occurrence. It’s a disposition that we all have.. an inability to see clearly in order to judge.

Fruit Inspection: I get to pass judgment on your life using the Bible

There are two major problems that occur when Christians claim once the log is dealt with, judging people is open for business. The first problem is what is called in the Christianese language… fruit inspection. So much to say here. Christians have made it their business to decide who is a good Christian or who isn’t, and it’s all based on behavior… the fruit of people’s lives. But that type of attitude ignores everything Jesus has said about judging and the log in the eye.

Here’s what gets missed. Verse one isn’t just about a one time judgment. When Jesus says “don’t judge” the literal language there is all about a posture, an attitude, a lifestyle… Jesus is saying “stop the ongoing habit of condemning people.” It targets a posture — the spirit of the person who has appointed himself permanent prosecuting attorney over everyone in his life.

Fruit inspection presumes not only that there is a right way or wrong way to behave as a Christian, it also presumes there are those who get to make the call on who is living the right way as a Christian or not. This is precisely what Jesus means when he says “don’t judge”. Because here’s the reality… there’s never a moment you or I don’t have a log in our eye. Which means there’s never a moment in which we are in a position to comment on whether or not someone is a good Christian or not.

I lived decades in that world. Let me tell you how it talks. It says: "Sure, I have sin — but my sin is X, and the Bible clearly condemns Y, and your sin is worse than mine." It says: "That passage doesn't qualify — their sin really is a log." It says: "We're not judging. We're fruit inspectors. God calls us to the fruit inspection business. We get to say who's in and who's out."

And the problem doesn’t stop there… once we are free to decide whether or not someone is living up to somebody’s standards of a good Christian, then we are free to move on to whether or not somebody is actually a Christian or not.

How many of you have been in a conversation where someone will say “pray for so and so… they aren’t a Christian.” Or they aren’t “saved”. I want to know… how do you know? A prayer list that files someone under "not saved" or "not living for the Lord" isn't intercession wearing a judgment disguise. It's a verdict, formally rendered, and then laundered through the most sanctified activity in the Christian life so it never has to feel like what it is.

All of this judging is based on behavior. And once the judging is based on behavior… we’re trusting our works to get us to heaven. We claim to know what’s in the heart. Jesus says, “stop that kind of judging”. The log in your eye is your own unbelief… your own behavioral problems.

Judging motives

There’s one more area where this shows up. We live in a world that is totally comfortable judging motives. It’s considered wisdom. It’s even a part of our everyday legal system. I remember watching a judge online handing down a sentence in the sentencing phase… and it was a notorious, high profile case… but in justifying a sentence of the maximum penalty, for more than a few minutes the judge went on and on and on about why this person did what they did. “You were thinking this. You wanted this. You decide that you had to have this.” It was all about motive. And this was a sentence for someone who had plead not guilty… not admitted to the crime, and here a judge was waxing eloquent about motives.

And I realize that’s a part of our court system. The reality is that the judge can made educated guesses about motive. They’ve been around the block a few times. But they cannot know motive that is hidden. We judge people’s motives all of the time. It’s considered wise. It’s considered normal. Judging motive is part of the enormous logs in our eyes.

Many moons ago I used to hang with a group of friends who made it a habit to joke about this when it would show up in various places. The moment someone would pick up on someone judging motives, one of us would say to the others: I saw his heart. And then we would laugh. We knew… we knew there’s no really seeing inside anyone’s heart, yet we live in a world where we just can’t help ourselves.. we are going to talk about what we know is in someone’s heart.

There’s only One Person who knows the heart. We can’t claim to. Fruit inspection claims to know motive. I’ve sat in seminars where this was stated out loud. The Bible never makes such a claim. We think “Don’t Judge” in Matthew 7:1 is mostly about actions… but then we decide that motives are totally fair game. How many of you have heard “I’m not judging what she did… but I can tell you why she did it”? That line has become one of the most socially acceptable sentences in both our culture and inside our churches. “He’s not doing this for this reason, but he’s in it for the money.” How do you know? Did he say he was in it for the money?

Or… he’s not really repenting… he’s only saying anything because he got caught. He’s not sincere, he’s only in it for the optics. How do you know? Who made us the judge? God didn’t. God didn’t set the church up to be the judge of motives. Or any of us. Behavior cannot tell us 100% motive. We were never given eyes to see the heart.

But then I have to ask this question: how many of you feel great when you’ve been judged? When someone judges your motives?

The Golden Rule

You know where all of this lands?

Matthew 7:12 “Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

This is known as the Golden Rule. And the Golden Rule’s context is the entire subject of judging others. You want others to be the judge and jury of your life, your inner thoughts? Do also the same for them.

That little word at the beginning — “So” — is the Greek word oun, a particle of conclusion. It means: therefore, in light of everything just said. The Golden Rule is not a standalone maxim tacked on at the end of a random collection of sayings. It is the capstone of this entire passage. It is the summary conclusion of the whole argument.

Because the Father treats us with extravagant mercy and generosity — because he gives log-eyed, pride-filled, myth-believing people like us grace upon grace upon grace — the call on our lives is to let that grace flow outward, shaping how we treat the people right in front of us. Treat them the way you want to be treated. With honesty, yes — because you would want someone to tell you the truth. With mercy, yes — because you know how much you have needed it. With patience and hope, yes — because that is exactly how God has treated you.

This is what community at The Table is meant to look like: people who have done the honest work of self-examination, who have gone to the Father with empty hands asking for what they lack, and who then turn toward one another with the same mercy they have received. Not a community of people who pretend everything is fine. Not a community of people who pick each other apart from a distance. A community of people who are for each other — honest enough to name what is real, humble enough to know their own need, and gracious enough to stay in the room.

The Gospel for the Judgey

The Gospel says we’ve all been judged by the law… we’re all guilty. We don’t have to pretend that there’s nothing wrong with our eyes. We don’t get righteousness by finding something wrong with somebody else. We’ve all sinned. We all continue to sin. And at the cross, we find that we are all guilty. We’re all in need of a Savior. We need someone who doesn’t have a log in his eye. We are all in need of forgiveness. We’re all in need of someone to bring to an end the law’s accusation. Forgiveness and grace work as the antidote here precisely because they're the one thing judgment can never produce for itself. Judgment cannot forgive. Jesus takes our judgment and then he forgives us.

That’s what Jesus has done for us. The one thing that the problem of being judge and jury cannot handle is forgiveness. You want to know why forgiveness is such a bad word in our culture? Because forgiveness gives up the gavel. And the Bible insists… you have been forgiven much… so forgive others. The antidote can't just be "try to judge less." The judge in us has to be killed, and what rises isn't a nicer judge, it's someone who's already been handed the one verdict that matters, free, and therefore has nothing left riding on rendering one for anybody else — measured out with the same mercy that measured it out for us, because it was never ours to dispense in the first place. Give up the gavel, because it was never yours. The only one who may keep it already used it on himself for you.

You don't have to justify yourself. And you don't have to condemn your neighbor. All of the judgment ends at the cross.

Let’s pray

The Table

The judging ends here. The law ends here. The ongoing accusation accusation against people — fruit lists, motive-reading, prayer lists of the "not saved" — is functioning as though tetelestai was never actually spoken, as though the verdict's still pending and somebody still has to keep the file open. Christ already closed it. Instead, we get forgiveness. Forgiveness that can be eaten. Forgiveness that gives life. Right here at this Table.