Bible Study Seattle

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”  Matthew 7:1

This may be the rally cry of the live and let live crowd.  The idea is that everyone’s morality is their own private business.  But by definition, morality affects other people.  If a bunch of pedophiles ruin kids’ lives privately, will that not have public consequences?  Do peoples’ character change just because they go from the private sphere to the public one?  Can a leopard change its spots?  Compare the above verse to:

“Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?”  1 Corinthians 6:2

So which is it?  Judge or not judge?  Isn’t the scripture contradicting itself?  Here’s another:

“Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”  John 7:24

Aha!  Its about the quality of our judgment.  Don’t we judge all the time people, whether we can trust them?  Or whether we should hire them?  God has already told us what is right and wrong:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before Me.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.  You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.  For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”  Exodus 20:2-17