Newsflash to the “Judge Not” Set: We Are Obligated to Judge Sin
Want to find a quick way to get laughed at and seriously trolled on any internet site? Bring up sexual morality and say that sex outside of marriage, traditional marriage, or abortion is sinful. Then agree with the view, specifically that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that any other sex is sinful. Then move onto abortion is murder. Remember the key word is S.I.N. Cue the “you’re judging” cries in 3…2…1…
Well guess what, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we can and should judge sin. As Christians we are called to judge others. It’s called “righteous judgment” and it means that we judge based on the will of God. Jesus said in John 5:30: “I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.”
It’s rather easy to take the first part of Matthew 7 and club Christians (or worse yet, fellow Christians) with “Judge not…” The problem with that is that if we were to never judge, then our courts and our churches would never be able to make moral judgments based on doctrine. Let’s not forget that Christ reminds us that we have the right and the responsibility to make judgments about ourselves and about others.
How do we do this? We make sure that the “plank” in our own eye has been removed before we start pointing out the “sliver” in someone else’s. What that means is that you need to see clearly and be honest about our own sinfulness, before looking at another. The judgment we are not supposed to be making is judging others in order to put them down. Sounds like those spitting the “You’re judging, you horrible person” lines, huh?
Marriage is between a man and a woman. Homosexuality and any sex outside of traditional marriage is wrong. Abortion is murder. I believe each of these. I won’t bend on my moral teachings. Wait for it…
And there it is, that pesky judging cry, the one that stymies Christians afraid of being seen as “uncharitable” or falling for the “Jesus wouldn’t judge” line. Guess what, the Bible doesn’t tell us not to judge in the way that is commonly thought. To see how that happens we all have to realize that the Bible has been translated a few times. Not only English to English (think of all the different iterations of the Bible: King James, KJV, NAB, etc.) but from Latin to English, Greek to Latin and Aramaic to Greek. Nuanced words, or different words with similar meanings got translated to single words.
One example, “judge”. In Greek, there are three words for “judge”: krino, anakrino, and diakrino (Strongs concordance numbers 2919, 350, and 1252). When the Bible was translated into English, only one word was used: “judge”. However, there are distinct meanings for each of those words: damn, determine, and differentiate. One example, in Luke 6:37 it uses the Greek word krino, which means “to damn.” “Damn not” means something very different than “judge not.” Diakrino means to differentiate. We can differentiate between, say, the sin of pride and the sin of murder. Anakrino means to determine. We can determine that a sin is wrong.
Don’t be cowed into believing the twisting of Scripture. Sin is real, judging it is our responsibility. Sex outside of marriage, traditional marriage, is sinful. Killing the unborn, for any reason, is wrong. If more people would stick to what they know is right, and not be bullied by the PC brigade, the next generation would be in a better place to know and make better judgments about what is right and wrong. Instead, we crumble like day-old cookies and abandon our children to the whims of an immoral society.
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