Rash Judgement

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches:

Do not judge, and you will not be judged yourselves; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned yourselves; forgive and you will be forgiven. Luke 6:36

Are we to judge nothing? What does Jesus mean by this?

God designed our mind to make judgments.

There are three steps to making good decisions:

1.  First, we Deliberate, we gather all relevant information;

2.  Then we make a judgment – we make a decision, this is the right thing or that is the wrong thing;

3.  Finally, we take action.

All decisions require we make judgments.

We can and must judge ideas or propositions: this is true and that is false.

We can and must judge behaviors: this is a good behavior, and this is a bad behavior.

However, we can never judge persons. We can never say this is an evil person because we cannot see or know their heart.

We can know their ideas if they express them, therefore we can judge ideas as correct or incorrect.

Likewise, we can judge behaviors because we can see them.

But we cannot judge or condemn persons as evil.