The Meaning of ‘Judge Not’? Judge Actions, Not Their Hearts

Every non-believer seems to quote this one Bible passage by heart: They don’t know the true meaning

Christianity involves giving yourself as a gift. Doing the opposite is dangerous.

“We’re never allowed to keep what we refuse to give away,” Father Mathias Thelen taught us. “That’s the Law of the Gift, the call of Christianity.”

The Law of the Gift is “no clearer than when Jesus is talking about judging and condemning. He says, ‘stop judging, and you will not be judged.’ Stop condemning, and you will not be condemned.”

The call to stop judging is perhaps the most often cited Biblical passage quoted by non-believers, particularly atheists, when they point to the hypocrisy of Christians. Jesus said clearly:

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” (Matthew, 7:2–3).

Social media, the news: Full of people judging, condemning — and blasting

Look at all the condemnation on social media and in the news. When we condemn others, calling them evil, sinful, self-centered, or narcissistic, we invite condemnation of ourselves.

The implication, Thelen said, is when we place ourselves in the role of God, the place where we begin to judge the hearts of other people, “that’s precisely when we invite judgment upon ourselves.”

If you condemn someone for doing something you have said or done yourself, others will be quick to label you a hypocrite.

Jesus similarly told some very judgmental religious men that the one free of sin should cast the first stone.

Standard 2021 politics is to show someone said something similar to whatever they’re condemning, creating a video exposing their double standard.

The truth is that we, as Christians, do not know the hearts of other people. You don’t know what’s going on in someone’s heart. You don’t know what’s going on in their life.

“You don’t know whether they’re just simply having a bad day or whether or not they had a terrible upbringing or maybe they’ve been deceived by some ideology,” Thelen said. “We don’t know what’s going on, so it’s very, very difficult for us to actually know what is it that someone intended or didn’t intend or their motivation.”

The 10 commandments and Jesus both teach Christians to love God first and then love others (even our enemies). As Mother Teresa of Calcutta stressed, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

JOY: The danger of “playing God” or sounding “holier than thou.”

Thelen teaches the JOY method of putting Jesus first, Others second, and Yourself third. The world, he adds, often teaches the opposite way of putting yourself first, others seconds, and God last.

St. Teresa of Avila similarly advised, “Be gentle to all, and stern with yourself.”

St. Maximilian Kolbe taught humility is the cure for pride: “Do not criticize! To speak only of the faults of others does not represent total reality, for every man, in addition to his faults, also has virtues, a good side.”

The first three of the 10 Commandments are clear: God must be first on our priority list. The moment we begin to play the game of trying to act like if we are God, we invite judgment upon ourselves, Thelen adds.

“We invite condemnation upon ourselves,” he said. “One of the most powerful things that I think we can remember is that as we grow in the interior life, as we grow in charity, we will find ourselves becoming more gentle toward others, a gentleness of trying to understand where they’re coming from, what is going on interiorly.”

Non-believers use “judge not” like a club, implying we can never judge anything or anyone. They point to the time Pope Francis said, “Who am I to judge,” to imply no Christian should ever judge anyone.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t judge people’s actions.

Judge Actions, Not People

Billy Graham called on everyone to focus on something different: “It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge, and my job to love.”

“There is a whole part of the Church that says ‘don’t judge,’ meaning you can’t have any judgment upon my actions whatsoever,” Thelen said. “That is un-Christian. We have the responsibility of judging actions as being right and wrong. We have to be able to say, ‘This is unbecoming of a Christian.’ ‘This is not what you’re called to.’ ‘No, this is the wrong behavior to do.”

“But we have to be very careful that we don’t know why they’re doing that; we don’t know whether they’re aware of that. We don’t know whether they’re living in insecurity and fear. We don’t know what they’re going through in their heart. So we shouldn’t judge them.”

As we grow deeper in our spiritual life, specifically as we grow deeper in God’s mercy toward us, His gentleness toward us, His compassion toward us, that gentleness and compassion can flow back into us.

The closer we grow to Jesus, the more we will be able to fulfill His call passage “for the measure with which you measure others will, in turn, be measured up to you.”

“How generous is your measure toward others?” Thelen asks. “That’s the measure that you’re going to get.”