Should Christians judge? – Sermon on the Mount E5

Should Christians judge? How does Jesus say we should treat others? In this episode Noël, Esther and Mark discuss Jesus’ countercultural teaching on judging others, wisdom in sharing faith, and 'The Golden Rule’. We are reminded that our confidence in prayer comes from God’s goodness and generosity, and finish by discussing how Jesus calls his followers to live and how we should show compassion within church community.
Timestamps

• (00:00) - Intro
• (00:56) - Matthew 7.1–6: Judging others
• (01:42) - Judging today
• (03:50) - What is Jesus really talking about?
• (06:42) - Mercy and judging
• (09:10) - Context of verse 6
• (11:35) - Wisdom in sharing faith
• (16:02) - Matthew 7.7–12: Ask, seek, knock and 'The Golden Rule'
• (17:34) - An expression of God's goodness and generosity
• (21:28) - The Golden Rule
• (24:02) - Positivity in Jesus' teaching
• (26:57) - Navigating hard situations

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Esther King

Esther is part of Bible Society's Communications team.

Host

Mark Woods

Mark is a Baptist minister and sometime journalist, who now heads up Bible Society's comms team.

Host

Noël Amos

Noël is the editor of Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal.

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Join the team behind Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal, for in-depth conversations about Scripture and how we can apply it to our everyday lives.

(00:05.798)
You're listening to The Rooted Podcast from Bible Society, a Christian organization that invites people to discover the life-giving power of the Bible by translating, publishing, and distributing it around the world. In each series of The Rooted Podcast, we dig deeper into a theme or book of the Bible and explore its message for us today. This is series one, Sermon on the Mount.

(00:35.438)
Welcome to the Rooted Podcast. We're really happy to be here for our fifth episode talking about the Sermon on the Mount. This week we're going to be looking at Matthew 7, verses 1 through 12. So I'm here with Mark and Esther. Hello. Good morning. Hello. Good morning. We're just going to have a chat through these passages here and talk about what we think Jesus is saying to us. So we'll start with verses 1 through 6, talking about judging others.

And Esther, do you want to go ahead and read? Oh yes, I'm ready.

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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. Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. Yeah, I think when we're thinking about judging, it's so interesting reading this kind of living in today's world because it's so...

countercultural, I guess, at the moment, especially in the sense that it's so wrong to judge people at the moment for anything that they do in society. We're very much living in a place where I think we're meant to accept whatever decisions people make in their lives and accept people for who they are and not kind of come against what people are doing. So it's interesting to read this passage in which Jesus is saying not to judge other people.

or will be judged. But what do you guys think about this? Well, I mean, I was also thinking about the modern context. And to me, it just makes me think about the hypocrisy actually that Jesus is highlighting in this passage. Because while there's all this thing about, you know, don't judge me. And I think it's so interesting actually. As Christians and as Bible society, we really want to promote Bible confidence and help people to actually know what the Scriptures say. And we might bemoan at certain points. We might worry that

or people don't read the Bible anymore, they don't know these verses, but this do-not-judge verse is actually so well known. As soon as you sort of express a view about anything, morally maybe, someone will pop up, this is maybe on social media more than anything, and they'll say, yeah, but you're not allowed to judge me because that's what it says in the Bible, don't judge or you'll be judged. But there's just an inherent hypocrisy in that because even in them saying that to you, they are judging you.

So it's a tricky one.

(03:35.826)
It is tricky, isn't it? Because Jesus is very clear elsewhere about right and wrong. And, you know, if today's attitude towards moral questions is a sort of, you know, it's a kind of morally flabby thing, it seems to me, you know, anything goes. It's like you were saying, both of you, that the idea that you should judge somebody else's choices and say, actually, I think you're wrong, is social death, isn't it really? I mean, you...

users don't do that. But I really struggle to think that Jesus is kind of backing up that view when he says, do not judge. And I think there is something else going on here, to be honest. And I think he is talking about the sort of hypercritical approach that some people take towards others.

I think he is talking about hypocrisy in the sense that the people he's targeting are people who set themselves up above other people. They judge people because they think that they're better than them. And they think that other people are sinners and that they are not sinners. It's like the tax collector and the Pharisee in the temple, and, you know, the Pharisee says, I thank you, Lord, that I am not as other men, etc., etc.

terribly holy and everything. And the tax collector doesn't even dare to lift his eyes to heaven, but says, God be merciful to be a sinner. And I think that's what Jesus is talking about. Yeah. So again, it's about kind of the condition of my heart and the place that I'm coming from when I'm making a judgment on something. Because I think you're right, we can make judgments on things that are.

right and correct. We're making judgments all the time, really. It's the idea of what is the heart behind why I'm judging this person, why am I even thinking about this thing that they're doing? Is my judgment coming from a good place or is it coming from a place of wanting to harm or think that I'm better than that person? Yeah, I mean, I think that is key, though. Your point about, you know, Jesus is ruling out a sense of pride or superiority over others based on what we deem them to be doing that's wrong.

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Because there are other parts of the Bible where, you know, like Paul writing to various churches kind of gives instructions to the believers about, or how do you deal with it when someone in your church family is doing something wrong? You know, how do you tackle that? So it's not that you can't actually call anything out or draw something to someone's attention. I think we see that in the section about removing a plank.

or from your own eye having a speck of dust to remove from somebody else's eye. He's not saying you can't do that process because that's actually a good thing, isn't it? Is, you know, to realize that we're doing something wrong and to stop doing it. So he's not forbidding that, but he's saying, you know, don't be unduly harsh and judgmental towards others because then you're going to be treated in the same way. Can I throw a Terry Pratchett quote in here, please? Go on.

Yeah, he's one of my favorite fantasy writers, died a few years ago. But one of his books is, it's a complicated story, but it's about vampires anyway. So this bit has a witch and a priest sitting on a horse together. And she is behind him. And she says, being human means judging all the time. This and that, good and bad, making choices every day. That's human. And the priest says, and are you sure you make the right decisions?

No, but I do the best I can. And hope for mercy, eh? A bony finger prodded him in the back. Mercy's a fine thing, but judging comes first. Otherwise you don't know what you're being merciful about.

And I think there's real wisdom in that. You know, mercy is a fine thing, but judging comes first. Otherwise, you don't know what you're being merciful about. I think unless we have this place to stand where we have really kind of internalized the Bible and the Bible's teaching about moral questions, ethical questions, we don't really know what we're being merciful about, you know?

(08:00.59)
We have to have a place to stand before we can have any views about anything basically. And it's when we have that secure place to stand that we can look at ourselves and we can think, well, you know, I have not lived up to what I believe. I need to confess. I need to repent. And so we stand alongside people rather than standing above people. That's beautiful.

something else that was in one of the commentaries I looked at. Actually, I don't only read Terry Pratchett, I read commentaries as well. It's interesting where Jesus says, with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. And one of the commentaries I looked at says that it might be that the idea here is a vessel, like a jar, used to measure corn. And so, if you use a tiny measure

to forgive other people, then that is the measure that God will use to measure you, which is very challenging, isn't it? It is. And I do think, I know I mentioned this parable about the unmerciful servant in the last episode from Matthew 18, but it reminds me of that as well. So not only can you link that to forgiveness, but it's that idea of the measure of grace that you show towards others will be the measure shown to you. Oh, that's good.

What do we think about verse 6? Do not give what is holy to dogs and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under your feet and turn and tear you to pieces. In some ways, it seems quite straightforward. Like we can read it and just be like, okay, yeah, I'm not gonna do that. It'll go badly for me. But I guess there's tons of different interpretations. People have thought lots of different things about this verse. Yeah.

I mean, it's quite a challenging one in some ways. I mean, the Jews of the time did sometimes refer to Gentiles as dogs or pigs. It's not a very polite way of talking about them, but that was the truth. I found it helpful to try and distinguish between what Jesus was saying to his Jewish audience.

(10:21.158)
and what he might be saying to us, because it might be that those are slightly different things. I'm thinking back to his encounter with the Saracenetian woman, where she says to him, can you hear my daughter, she's demon afflicted and so on, and he says, it's not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs.

Now actually, she out argues him in that place, the only place in the Gospel where Jesus, you know, on the face of it loses an argument to a Gentile woman, actually. But I think here there is the idea that his mission was to choose first, and it's after the resurrection, it's with the inauguration of the church and the ministry of Paul.

that spreads to Gentiles, but Jesus' primary message was to Jews. And He was echoing things which were quite common ideas in the Judaism of the time. There was a strand in Judaism which was very isolationist, where the rabbis taught that if you reveal our religions to Gentiles, you'll only make them hate us even more.

were other strands in Judaism which were very missionary as well. So maybe he's saying here that there are holy things about our faith which, you know, you don't share with other people because they wouldn't understand it. And so putting it like that is specifically sort of connecting with his Jewish audience. But then I think, well, what is of enduring value in that? You know,

(12:08.874)
wisdom in sharing our faith. You know, maybe it's about reaching people on their own level and respecting their level of understanding rather than expecting them to take everything in at once. And maybe too, it's just about accepting that some people are completely closed and completely hostile and you can't do anything with them. I think you're right in what you've said but I do think there's even an application here.

for Jesus and his disciples sharing the message with the Jewish audience that they were first sent to. Because if you look at Matthew 10, where Jesus sends out the twelve disciples, and he's given them like authority to drive out impure spirits and heal every disease and illness, and he tells them, enter into the towns, and he's talking about, you know, the Jewish towns here, to preach that the kingdom of heaven has come near. He then says,

or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. So I still think there's that idea that maybe the core idea is about how people respond to this pearl, which, you know, there's the pearl of great price parable, which is about, you know, the message of the kingdom. I don't think that there's only a context here, like that the dogs and pigs described are gentiles.

(13:35.758)
kind of unclean in that sense of close to the gospel, rejecting the gospel. Then once you've shared the gospel with them, if they reject it, you can then shake the dust off your feet. Don't keep throwing that pearl at them. Move on and share the pearl with someone else who might respond and listen. Yeah, I think that's right. I think, too, some ways that I've thought about this passage, which is kind of different, but...

focusing more on what you were saying, Mark, about wisdom and being wise about what you share with who. Because I think there are times, have you guys ever had, where you, like, the Lord speaks something to you or something really powerful happened to you in Christ, and you go to share it with someone else and you're really kind of excited about it and the response you get is just like, oh, that's cool, or whatever, and you're kind of like, oh. And you feel as if you've just given this pearl to someone.

and you've shared this thing that's massive to you and they didn't really like care about it. Does that make sense? It's as if you've cheapened the thing that you've just said. I think I've experienced that a lot and even saying it to other Christians or to maybe to non-believers as well. I think when I've read this, I've thought I need to actually be wise with the things that the Lord gives me, holding them close to my heart and letting them be treasure and actually protecting them.

And not to say you shouldn't share things that the Lord says to you, but I think the wisdom in that, in who am I going to entrust this thing to me, the relationship that I have with God and how important it is, who am I going to let into that? Yeah, does that make sense? That's kind of how I thought about it sometimes. Yeah, I know. So there's that destructive element of when someone turns around and questions something that you know to be true and that is beautiful and, you know, a great thing to share.

and then they not only trample on it and cheapen it, but they actually tear you apart, it does damage to you. And that's, isn't it lovely that he's basically saying, protect yourself from that. You're not expected to go and be torn to pieces for your faith all the time. You know, we can say, look, I've shared this with you. I know it's beautiful and true. I'm now gonna go and share it with someone who'll appreciate it. Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

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We'll be back in just a second. We're going to look at verses 7 through 12. Shall we move on? We've got verses 7 through 12. Would you like to read those, Mark? I will, yeah.

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Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. For this sums up the law and the prophets.

When we were preparing for this episode, I said to Mark and Esther, I think the interesting thing about this is that it doesn't seem to be true. Like, we seem to ask God for things and we don't get them in response. And Mark said a bit facetiously that he would set me right on that. So I'm ready. It is a really challenging thing on the face of it, isn't it? And I read that completely straight, you know, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find.

knock on the door will be opened to you, everyone who asks receives, etc. Now, is that true? Well, on the face of it, not. But I think you can sort of, I think you can understand it better if you think about it as being an expression of God's overall goodness and generosity.

So, the illustrations that Jesus gives, you know, if His Son asks for bread, we'll give him a stone, a fish, a snake, and the fish, if He asks for a fish, we'll give him a snake. Well, one idea is that the original word that Jesus used, which is translated in Greek, snake, might have been an eel, okay, which looks like a snake, but is actually an unclean food. You're not allowed to eat eels if you're Jewish.

There's a kind of cruelty about it. There's a mockery. You know, you have the idea of a father who is deliberately playing mind games with his son. And that's, it's very dark actually, in that sense. And Jesus also, you know, what father is going to do that to his son? Well, you know, if even people like you understand that that's a really bad thing,

(18:47.01)
can you not see that God would never do that, and God is generous and God is good? So there's a general statement of God's goodness and generosity. And I think you can bring this out if you just read this with a different emphasis, because it's really an encouragement to prayer, because it's actually encouraging us to ask. And if we ask, then our prayers

be answered. If we seek, we'll find. If we knock, the door will be opened. So, it's not about what God is going to do. It's about our attitude and our approach to God and our trust in Him. He may answer our prayers. He may not, not in the way that we think. But that's not the point that Jesus was making. He's trying to encourage us to trust in the goodness of God. Yeah.

I do know that is you've put that so beautifully. I really liked how the ESV study Bible notes kind of unpacked those three words that you emphasize just then, ask, seek, knock. It says, you know, that asking is like, we're being encouraged to come to God in humility and awareness of our need. And then, you know, unpacking seek. When he says seek, it's seeking the will of God as we ask for what we need. And then knock.

Well, that suggests perseverance. We're to persist in prayer, confident that our Father will provide whatever is best for us. Because He's good, like you were just saying. I guess we do ask God for all kinds of things, and some of them it wouldn't be good for Him to give them to us. So, there's also a kindness in not giving us something we ask for, if it wouldn't be good. Yeah. I think, too, I was thinking about in John, I think it's these chapters, John 14-17. I think it's Jesus tells us to ask.

I think it's four different times for things and they will be given. He's constantly saying, ask, ask. I don't actually think that it's wrong to be asking a lot of the Lord and trusting like you've said, Esther, that He will answer the prayers that are good for us and that His will be done. But if we do know Him, then we're asking in line with His will, right? Hopefully we're not asking for things that He wouldn't want.

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But I think it's that understanding that as I get to know Him more and as I'm closer with Him, the things that I want become more so like the things that He wants. Yes. And then I'm asking in line with His will. And you would think that means more answered prayers. You would think that means that His kingdom is coming to earth more through that. And what do we think about this last verse? It says,

(21:38.242)
That's what my NASB says. Yeah, I guess this is interesting too, because this is the second greatest commandment, really, isn't it? Because Jesus repeats this later on with the first commandment as well. But here, it's just the second one that's stated. And it says in the NASB, this is the law and the prophets. The second greatest commandment in terms of love your neighbor as yourself. Yeah, yeah, right. I think what's interesting about this is kind of like,

how it switches up the focus as well. We've been looking at earlier judging, so that's a focus on what other people might be doing. But this shifts the focus to, look, if you're struggling to stop being harsh in your judgments and these other things, well, just think about how you'd actually like to be treated and the grace that you hope to receive when you mess up. So it's saying the same thing, isn't it? And it definitely does link to those commandments.

it's also saying, look, maybe it's easier for you to understand if you see this through the lens of how you want to be treated. I think it is really interesting how Jesus links how we treat each other back to the Old Testament law. You know, I think Christians sometimes have the wrong idea about the Jewish approach to the law. You know, you sometimes hear people say, oh, well, Jews believe

by works, you know, you're saved if you do everything the law says. But that's not really how they thought about it or how they think about it. If you were a Jew, then the way that you showed your devotion to God was by keeping the law. So Jesus says, yeah, but the way that the law and the prophets are summed up, so everything that they're geared to is, you know, is this...

golden rule, it's sometimes called, do to others what you'd have them do to you. So it's very human focused in many ways. Romans 13, 8, Paul says, he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law. I mean, that's such an incredibly challenging, such a revolutionary thing to say really, isn't it?

(24:02.13)
It's quite common in ancient literature to put this in a negative way. For instance, there's King Naicocles who said, do not do to others the things that make you angry when you experience them at the hands of other people. There's a philosopher Epictetus who said, what you avoid suffering yourselves, don't seek to inflict upon others.

The Stoics had as one of their maxims, what you do not wish to be done to you, do not do to anyone else. So that's all put negatively. But Jesus is the only one at the time who said, do to others what you'd have them do to you. Everybody else puts it negatively. Jesus puts it positively. It's really interesting, isn't it? Yeah, that's beautiful.

Yeah, so why do you think, Mark, that he turns it kind of in a positive way like that? Because that is really interesting. Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? I suppose I just have a sense that just not doing to other people what you don't want them to do to you is just a bit flat. It's not really morally ambitious. It's not really spiritually ambitious.

it kind of just leaves people where they are. And I think the, I mean, the whole point about the incarnation, you know, God coming into this world in Jesus, it's God reaching out to us, isn't it? And it's God taking the initiative and not just leaving us where we are, but actually making us better and giving us more.

being generous and all of that kind of thing. So I think it's this idea of generosity and giving that lies behind this. And I think it's the Holy Spirit as well, you know, who comes on the disciples after Jesus is raised and ascended, you know, because the Spirit

(26:26.082)
Fizz and life and change and everything, yeah. It almost reminds me of what Jesus says earlier when he says, if you're only loving to those who love you, what good is that? But then he takes it a step further and he says instead you should love your enemies. It's kind of saying that. If you only don't do what you don't want others to do to you, like that's good, but you could actually do good things to others that you would have them do to you. It kind of takes it a step further.

Any other final thoughts you guys wanted to wrap this up? Well, you know, as we've been talking, I have been thinking a bit about the conversation we had earlier about where Jesus says, don't judge. And we got into talking about culture war stuff and things like that, and how sometimes it's right to judge and talk about hypocrisy and everything. And I think what we said was right. I'm just...

wondering if we missed a bit of talking about the real situations that people might find themselves in and how good church-going people are often in better places than people who might not be, you know, good church-going people. And even within congregations, obviously, there are people whose lives are just falling apart and who aren't in good places. And the

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wrong or wrong things might be happening to them. You know, we might be tempted to judge them and regard them as failures in some ways. And I think there's a kind of pastoral thing going on here which Jesus is also thinking about. We need to be willing to walk with people and sit with people and just kind of suspend judgment sometimes because that's not what they need. There's the book What's Amazing About Grace.

I think the story is in there about, I think it was a prostitute that he was talking to and he suggested that she goes to church and she said, why would I want to go to church? They'll just make me feel worse about myself. And I've sort of half remembered the story, but I do remember the quote. And I think that if church is a place where people are just made to feel worse about themselves, we are not getting it right.

No, so it's about compassion, are you saying? You know, how do we show compassion to somebody who's clearly... We can see signs that their life is not going well, they're not flourishing and whatever. And instead of like, just pointing a finger at them for that, maybe how do we come alongside them and say, are you okay? What's going on? How can I help you? Kind of linking back to what you've both been saying about, don't just do no harm, but how can you actually do good in that situation and help that person?

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Yeah, I think it has to do a lot with forgiveness as well. I actually think as a church, we're quite bad a lot of the time at actually forgiving people. Imagine someone in your congregation who was a leader fell morally in our society, or thinking about leaders falling in general in the church, kind of these famous leaders. We're not very good at forgiving them, are we? We're not very good at saying, oh, okay, you did this thing that is really bad.

We're going to judge it and say, yeah, that was bad, and we understand that, but we're going to invite you back in. It's not something that we actually do in Christian culture today in our churches. In a way, I think we just exclude people. I imagine in my own church or in churches I've been in, if leaders were to have fallen, that would be the end of the road for them in terms of leadership. It's very uncommon that they get invited back into that place by the congregation and by their own people, which I think is quite sad.

Can I just jump in a little bit there though and say, you know, does forgiveness mean that, because there's a restoration isn't there in terms of just forgiveness, but that doesn't mean that forgiving involves them being put back in a place of leadership if they're not fitted to be a leader or if the relationship is so damaged that how could they actually lead that congregation on that basis? That's not necessarily that they haven't been forgiven for the sin that they've committed. So I don't think it's...

necessarily means we have to like say, oh, and you can continue doing exactly what you're doing. But I do get what you're saying about our society, like if someone does one thing wrong, and yes, that might be a serious thing, but is there any way back just to being forgiven? Or are they basically like putting yourself in the place of God and saying, right, there is no way back for you? We cannot do that as humans. We're not God.

Yeah, I think you're right about the leadership thing. I think you're right. That's a decision to be made. But even just invited back into the community, can they ever be seen as they were seen before? Are we actually willing to forgive that drastically, I guess, to where people actually feel like they're a part of the community again? Or do we kind of ostracize those who we've then judged, if that makes sense? Very challenging.

(31:40.802)
The important thing to do is to think about how much forgiveness Christ has shown me in my own life. If I'm struggling to forgive someone else, remember what's been done for me and how I've been saved and how much He's loved me helps me to love others, right? It's been really good talking with you guys again about this. We're going to wrap up here. We're going to end. We'll be back next week with another episode. As always, if you have a question, please do submit it to us at...

biblesociety.org.uk forward slash rooted questions. And we have one more episode in the series and then we'll have a Q&A episode after that. And we'll try to get to as many of those questions as we can. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Rooted Podcast. To find out more about Bible Society's mission, to invite people to discover the Bible for themselves in England, Wales, and around the world, visit biblesociety.org.uk.