Learning How to Judge Correctly, Part II

You have heard that is was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’  But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.  And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council.  But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. (Matthew 5:21-22, NKJV)

I have heard many times before that Christians shouldn’t judge others, but this is not true.  There are two types of judging, one which leads to redemption, the other to condemnation; one Jesus identifies by the word raca, the other by the word fool.  We examined the word fool in Learning How to Judge Correctly, Part I.  To summarize, to say “you fool” is to condemn someone.  Biblically speaking a fool is a person who has no redeemable qualities and is destined to spend eternity apart from God (Psalm 14:1; 53:1).

Now Christians, knowing the Word of God, are capable of judging what is right from wrong, good from evil, holy from unholy and spiritual from worldly.  Because we know the truth, we are not only capable of judging correctly, we are also told to do so.  Jesus says in Matthew 23:23, “… ye… have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done…”  (KJV).  In John 7:24, he says, “Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly” (NLT).  This lets us know that the issue is not with judging.  It is with how we judge – or how we neglect to judge.  This is the very issue Paul had with the Corinthians.  In 1 Corinthians 6:2, he rebukes them by saying, “… don’t you know that God’s people will judge the world?  If the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to judge trivial cases?” (CEB).   Paul is essentially saying raca to the Corinthians.  Raca literally mean “empty-headed”.  Today, we would use the word stupid.  Stupid is such an offensive word.  Isn’t it?  This is the reason Jesus warns us not to call our brothers and sisters stupid without cause.

So this is the dividing factor between judging to condemn and judging to correct. Are we simply asserting our own sort of justice or do we desire to empower and improve ourselves or the other person?  If we read 1 Corinthians, we would see how stupid the Corinthians were actually acting.  However, Paul didn’t simply rattle off every wrong they did and walked away.  He gave them godly instructions, to empower them so that they might be restored back into right relationship with God and right fellowship with each other.

Today let us start practicing judging correctly - understanding that this type of judging requires not only identifying the issues within ourselves or within others but it also involves corrective measures to empower and improve ourselves or the other person.