The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor

Thoughts on the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5-7

Part 14

How do we display righteousness greater than the way the religious people of Jesus’ day were acting? How do we bring the Kingdom way of living into our relationships?

Jesus gives us four principles:

1. Don’t judge or condemn (7:1-2) 
2. Help others (speck in eye – 7:2-5)
3. Discern (pearls & swine – 7:6)
4. Lovingly communicate (ask, seek, knock – 7:7-11) 

Then, he sums up the entire middle section of the Sermon on the Mount with the Golden Rule (7:12). He begins:

^7:1“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. ² For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”

There are two kinds of judging, one good, the other bad. 

1. Good: Discerning, differentiating, evaluating, concluding and acting on the conclusion. Making a judgment call. 
2. Bad: Self-righteously attempting to gain the moral high ground by condemning, controlling, being contemptuous, or lording over others.

Condemnation always involves self-righteousness and contempt. Judgment is a means of control; it seeks to undo others’ humanity by categorizing them. Judging a person to be inferior, a threat, or evil dehumanizes them and declares them to be of less worth, deserving of exclusion, and of being discarded. Judgmentalism is the first sin. The satan deceived the humans into believing they could decide what is good and what is evil without God.

So, don’t measure or condemn, so you won’t be judged, measured, condemned.  I don’t know the genetics, brain chemistry, or socio-economic background of anyone. I have no right to judge. God knows motives; we don’t (1 Corinthians 4:5).

Don’t condemn others and don’t receive condemnation from others.

If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows everything. (1 John 3:20 ISV)

Self-condemnation leads to shame, hopelessness, self-rejection, and self-hatred. Jesus said to love yourself.

Don’t judge people groups either. Prejudices, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, antisemitism, and the like are hateful, destructive attacks on who a person is, rejecting the imago Dei in them and taking God’s name in vain.

Why not judge? So you won’t be judged. It comes back to you as rejection, perfectionism, procrastination, or passive aggression. Only Jesus has the right to drive out the money changers.