Judging others? Jack Nichols.

Jack Nichols shares: We are to judge only the actions of other members of the church, not the people themselves, nor are we to judge unbelievers at all.

Paul says 2 things about judging others, and in both cases, it is a "NO". We are NOT called to judge. There is only one judge and that is Christ Jesus Himself.

In (Romans 14) we hear Paul speak about the topic of NOT Judging another brother in the faith, and gives many examples throughout the chapter. It is in verse 4 that we get the succinct reason why we should not.

Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

Notice what is said here:

Who are we to judge someone else's servant? The "Servant of another master" is the Christian Brother, and the "Someone Else" is Jesus Christ, the same who is our master as well.

Jesus is Master of all His servants, and He is so singularly, to each and every one of us. He is the only Judge, and we do not have license as a believer to judge for Him.

So yes... He who is without sin, cast the first stone... 😉

We have no clue about another's personal relationship with Christ, their ups and downs in their lives, their progress through sanctification. Comparing ourselves to others is "Apples vs Oranges". A Christian does not compare themselves to another Christian, they compare themselves to Christ, to see how much further they must go to be like Him. Their walk, their current standing with Christ is their business and that f Christ, just as yours or mine are of our own business and Christ. We do not answer to our fellow believers in this matter, but to Christ alone, each of us individually.

We certainly do not judge their salvation at all. And this is what Paul drives home in verse 4, that all of us stand before Christ, because He is able to make us stand before Him, by His sacrifice for our sins... All your brother's sins, all your sins, all of my sins, all who are believer's sins.

With all this said then, what is it that we are called to do?

Be disciples of Christ, and to love one another as He loved us, and to preach the Gospel while we have the season given to us to do so. 😉

The second thing Paul says about judging others, is about judging those in the world who are not saved yet. We do not judge unsaved people, since we, at one time were the very same people in our sin before Christ came into our hearts and lives. Thus, "Such were some of you..." (1 Cor 6:11)

Again, Christ Jesus is the only judge, but Paul gets to the reason why we don't judge unbelievers in (1 Cor 5:13), and it is simply this, it is none of his (Paul's) business (or ours either) to judge anyone outside the Church (verse 12), but only God's business to judge the unbeliever (verse 13).