Stop Judging Me!

Who are you to judge? 

Stop judging me! 

It's wrong to judge.

Sound familiar? 

I am convinced that this culture is ruled by slogans, not by thought. A few popular slogan are listed above. And that's what they are, slogans. 

Does anyone even know what they mean when they say this? After all, a prisoner sentenced to the death penalty wouldn't say to the judge "you have no right to judge me! Who are you?" Because the judge would say, "well, me. I am both qualified, and have adequate information to judge."

But wait, that's not what people mean. After all, not everyone is in a court setting. 

No.

We are talking about looking down upon. 

Whenever someone says "don't judge me" to me, I always make them explain what they mean by it. Usually they don't know, or they will give some variation of what I just said. Don't look down on me.

We must keep these two definitions in mind; two different senses in which the word can mean depending on context. Either to asses information, or to look down upon. 

As Christians, we are called to judge, in the first sense. 

Matthew 7 speaks to this. Everyone uses the plank in the eye as a weapon to ward off anyone who calls them out on anything. But this is how the passage is meant to be taken, do not call someone out if you are doing the very same thing. Otherwise, call them out. Why wouldn't a brother or sister in Christ seek their greatest good and confront them in love? That isn't judging in the second sense, that is assessing, then pushing them to maturity. 

As for looking down upon? This is what the Bible calls haughty eyes, and is spoken against. Psalm 18:27 says that God delivers the humble, but brings down the one with haughty eyes. The way we speak about others reveals where our heart is at. If it is riddled with bitterness and attempts to undermine them, then that person is looking at others with haughty eyes. It often is disguised as false humility, and cloaks itself with good intentions, when at the core it is gossip. Haughty eyes is a sin that finds its origin so very deep within the heart, that often we act out of it without even noticing. 

What then? 

The cure for haughty eyes is humility, or other's centeredness, as Christ modeled. (Philippians 2) At the very least, every person is an image bearer of God, and deserves love and respect. And if he or she is a believer, that person is now identified in the inner man as the righteousness of Christ. To look with haughty eyes on a believer is to look down upon Christ, the righteous. But to asses and then push to maturity, as in the first sense, is to love them. To look with haughty eyes upon a believer is to reject Christ's righteousness within them.