Rule #1 for Fighting Well for Peace
Growing up I steered clear of backyard brawling with other kids. Oh I got into a few scrapes here and there—won some, lost some. But as a rule, I wanted nothing to do with neighborhood fisticuffs. Consequently I never learned how to fight well. No great loss actually.
Becoming a follower of Jesus long ago soon revealed the need for a different approach. Over 54 years—36 of them in vocational ministry—I’ve experienced what feels like more than my share of church “fights.” Some of them I’ve caused, some of them not. Either way at some point it became clear I needed to learn how to engage well in fighting for peace with my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Few passages of Scripture have helped me more to this end than Matthew 7:1-12. In my last post, Engaging Well in Fighting for Peace, I summarized Jesus’s main idea like so:
When sin threatens relational peace, kingdom people engage constructively.
Jesus gets immensely practical and stunningly direct here. Offenses will certainly come (Luke 17:1, CSB). We all stumble in many ways (James 3:2). There’s no escaping it. The question is how do we handle things when it hits? What guides the way we engage one another’s brokenness? Jesus insists we kingdom-types engage constructively—negatively, three ways we must not engage (1-6); positively, two ways we must engage (7-12).
In this post I want to tackle the first of the three negatives.
Avoid Engaging Judgmentally
“Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
Judge not.
Talk about a notoriously misinterpreted Bible verse! He cannot mean bar none, invariably, without exception. The immediate context alone rules that out—you can see clearly another’s speck (5) and you must discern necessarily dogs and hogs (6). Peace and unity must never come at the expense of truth and holiness. So, what does Jesus forbid? The Amplified Bible gets it right:
Do not judge and criticize and condemn [others unfairly with an attitude of self-righteous superiority as though assuming the office of a judge].
Why must we categorically eschew a critical spirit? Ponder again the first two verses:
“Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
What goes around comes around. What you sow you reap. When? In this life? Likely. More problematically, in the next. Romans 14:10-12 warns:
Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; 11 for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” 12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
When we give way to Pharisaical, self-righteous, holier-than-thou, carping criticism that judges heart motives we cannot discern and dismisses outright others for whom Jesus shed his precious blood, we have presumptuously usurped the throne of judgment. Move over God, that seat is mine. You can expect to get exactly the same before him. He will use the identical measurement on you. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13).
The next time you feel tempted to go all-Pharisee on someone waste no time hitting the Matthew 7:1-2 pause button. Refuse to play judge. Don’t you dare drop that gavel. If you do, you will get back from the Lord exactly what you dish out to the target of your judgment.
How to fight well from there without judging this way will continue with my next post.