by Hansol An

Lighthouse Bible Church has always challenged our members with the depth and breadth of teaching offered. Many collegians have told me that they had not been exposed to the type of teaching offered at LBC prior to coming here. While that can be a tremendous blessing, for younger people it can also be a stumbling block, often without realizing it. When a younger person has been deeply impacted by a new teaching or revelation, there is a tendency to take that new found knowledge and want to share it immediately so that it can have the same type of impact on others. Naturally, friends and family are the first to hear what they have learned. At times that enthusiastic application of Scripture to others’ lives turns into premature passage of judgment and can cause unnecessary conflict in the process. That’s not to say we should not judge the lives of others, at all. The Bible clearly calls for believers to apply God’s standards to ourselves and others (e.g. 2 Corinthians 13:5, Matthew 7:16, John 7:24). But it also tells us to be careful how we do it.

Wise discernment starts with fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7). Those who do not take heed of their place before God will surely not show humility before others, revealing their foolishness. One cannot hope to judge others in a biblical manner without a biblical measure of humility. Pride exists where humility is absent. When applied to judging others, said pride can manifests itself through self-righteousness, detracting for whatever godly intent a person may have had. Pride can also keep us focused on ourselves and not on the other person’s situation, effectively blinding our spiritual eyes or at the very least, limiting our field of vision. When we are too focused on our own righteousness, we cannot give our full attention to another person’s situation. In general, we shouldn’t think too highly of ourselves (Romans 12:3) but especially when examining the lives of others. It would be ideal for a person’s humility to grow in direct proportion to their growth in knowledge but with young believers, that isn’t always easy. There is a reason the Apostle Peter specifically calls out “you who are younger” to be humble when exhorting the church (1 Peter 5:5).

Christ himself warns us to be careful in the Sermon on the Mount. In the 7th chapter of Matthew we see his warning:

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Before we begin to look at the deficiencies in the life of another, we need to make sure we don’t have any issues that can blind our judgment and make us look like hypocrites.

Another danger for collegians to consider is their own relative inexperience. Not having a broad base of experience–both blessings and trials–puts a younger person at a disadvantage when trying to fully grasp another person’s situations. This relative lack of experience means that a younger person is more likely to be limited in their ability to see all the possible reasons for someone else’s behavior, thus likelihood of misunderstand another person’s situation is greater. As a person gets older and goes through more in life, they have a greater pool of experiences to reference when carefully examining another person’s life.

Ultimately, when judging others, as in all things, it needs to be done in love. Without it we are merely “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” 1 Corinthians 13 describes the love that we are called to have. Examine whether or not your good intentions line up with the description of love in that chapter. If not, perhaps your intentions are not motivated by God’s love. We have to remember that God is the final and true judge to whom we will all answer to for our actions and words (2 Corinthians 5:10). He knows the intentions of our hearts better than we do. It would be wise to pray for his assistance in such matters, asking for our will to be aligned with his.

If you are convinced that your heart is in the right place to judge another, even then we need to proceed with caution. It can be easy to take in a lot of information and regurgitate it to someone and say, “Don’t you know that the Bible says…” but we forget that it also says, “… let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak…” (James 1:19). James warns us to not be so eager to teach others because doing so can have far reaching consequences (James 3). I have witnessed many instances of harsh judgment that have occurred over the years. Most were well-meaning and began with good intentions, but due to a lack of discernment, the judgment often did more harm than good, oftentimes resulting in a broken relationship. I’m sure that was not the intent.