by Robert Darmody

Created on: June 14, 2009   Last Updated: June 15, 2009

It is impossible to obey the the teachings and examples of Jesus without using judgment.

Try to figure out how you would determine what is good or evil without using your faculties of judgment. It would be like trying to look at words without reading them. So, common sense must be called upon to answer how it is that Jesus is represented as cautioning against judging others while he is also requiring it in order to follow his examples and his words.

This is why we must never fear using our God-given ability to question, and think critically. We have been endowed with the uniquely human gifts of reasoning by no accident. Responsibility for use comes along with the gifts. They are not to be abdicated to the likes of doctrines fashioned by gurus or 'pastors.' If you gave your child a new bicycle, only to discover the child had traded it away it to another kid in return for a ride on the handle bars every Sunday morning, how would you feel? It is incumbent upon us to reason for ourselves and to make judgments without abdicating the work to others who ask for pay and claim to possess discernment that is superior. If we don't, how would you think God might feel about it?

The argument addressed here over 'judgment' belongs to a long held misundersatnding that occured because of translations between languages and years of semantic manipulation by those who wish to be free of questions and possible rejection.

The oft quoted and thoroughly misunderstood admonition was against something closer to the English word condemn; closer to voicing pronouncements of doom or exacting punishment. The 'lest you be judged' principle was already clearly illustrated centuries hence in the story of the Exodus, when Pharoah condemned the first born of Isreal and God visited Pharoah's 'judgment' on his own house. He was condemned by his own 'judgment.'

A similar confusion from another translation is evident by the use of the English word kill in translating one of the commandments. The Hebrew word for murder was originally written in the commandment, but was translated as kill. To kill another human being is homicide. Some homicide is unlawful and called murder. The distictive differences between the words for homicide and murder in Hebrew are still misunderstood among many who claim to be biblical scholars today!

One must reason literally between the lines of writings that have been translated between many languages, over many centuries. If something doesn't resonate as in 'ringing true' or seems inconsistent, the inconsistency is almost certain to be traceable to language differences.

To choose between what we reason to be right or wrong requires judgment. If, along with making the choice in line with your discernment, you proceed to condemn, villify or bring harm to what has been rejected, that is the point at which it becomes the kind of judgment warned against. It is for a very sound reason that has also been clearly illustrated throughout the Bible.. A 'jealous God' will not suffer his role to be usurped.

You must judge for yourself and make decisions in light of your faith in teachings of any leader, Jesus included. Judgment is necessary in order to decide how you will live your life.

Judge in the form of hateful condemnation? ......not.

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