Should Christians judge? “Don’t judge others or you will be judged.” This paraphrase of scripture is often used by Christians to say that it is never acceptable to judge other Christians’ behavior. As a result, some Christians will never intervene when they see a fellow Christians living in sin.
What you’ll find out is that Christians actually should judge other Christians. But, there is a right and a wrong way to do it! Let’s go to the Bible and see how God would have Christians judge other Christians.
Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.
Those are the words of Jesus Christ, telling us to do two things. Stop judging according to the wrong standard, and to start judging correctly. Right away, we see that the Bible doesn’t forbid judging. Jesus says when you are passing judgment, make sure you’re doing it in the correct way.
Here are five principles to consider:
A Christian cannot judge another person’s salvation
Matthew 13 contains a parable that is known as the parable of the wheat and the weeds. In the parable, there is a farmer that has some people working for him. The workers notice that someone has planted weeds among their wheat crop, and they’re growing together. The workers ask the farmer if he wants them to pull the weeds.
The farmer tells them not to, saying that they risk uprooting the weeds if they try to pull them from among the wheat too early. He’s essentially telling them they don’t have enough information at this early point to tell what was wheat and what was weeds. At this point, they look the same. But over time, the wheat will continue to grow and separate itself. He tells the workers to let them grow until the harvest, then they can separate the weeds and burn them.
We don’t have enough information to tell whether someone is wheat (saved) or a weed (unsaved). God will separate Christians from non-Christians over time, but right now we can’t make that determination. We aren’t God, and we can’t look into someone’s heart to assess their salvation.
A Christian cannot judge someone’s motives
So don’t make judgments about anyone ahead of time—before the Lord returns. For He will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. Then God will give to each one whatever praise is due.
Because the Lord hasn’t returned yet, we don’t have the ability to judge. God hasn’t revealed people’s darkest secrets or private motives. We don’t know whether someone could live a very righteous-looking life, while hiding dark secrets or impure motives. Again, we don’t have enough information for this; only God does.
A Christian can judge actions and words
If I as a Christian see someone watching pornography, committing adultery, abusing their spouse or some clearly sinful action like that, I’m within my rights as a Christian to call that out as behavior that goes against the word of God. If I hear someone lying, cursing, verbally abusing someone, or saying sinful things, I can likewise call those things out.
What I can’t do in those scenarios is then judge a person’s salvation or motives based on a single action or word.
A Christian should judge themselves before judging others
“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.’”
Notice here that Jesus doesn’t tell us to ignore what’s in our brother’s eye. But he tells us to address the much bigger and more urgent issue of what’s in our eye before we worry about what’s in someone else’s eye. Additionally, he suggests that we won’t even be able to effectively deal with our brother’s problem until we deal with our own.
Before you judge someone else, ask yourself: “Is there any area in my life similar to the other person’s struggle?” Most of the time, the answer will be yes.
If you’re about to judge someone for being sexually immoral, you might want to ask yourself if you’ve been sexually immoral in any way, including in the area of lust.
Don’t judge people for the same things you do!
A Christian cannot judge another person’s spiritual maturity
It’s not up to us to label others as baby Christians, carnal Christians, or whatever other category. Again, we don’t usually have enough information to fully evaluate that. Even a Christian you may view as mature based on their knowledge of scripture, you just don’t know what they may be dealing with internally and spiritually.
Should Christians judge? My conclusion
Christians do have to pass judgment on what other people are doing, particularly when they are unrepentant. But we need to stop judging people’s salvation and motives, especially when we haven’t taken a good look at ourselves first.