Judgment and Accountability
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
One question that seems to come up often is this: “If you never judge someone, how can you hold them accountable?” Firstly, I’d like to point out that while in many cases our English language does a poor job of representing what the Bible says in it’s original form, if you look up the words translated “judgment” and “accountable” in lexicons you’ll see that the English and Hebrew aren’t too terribly far apart. (Of course, some distance is created by how one ought to use the terms in relation to God and Godliness.)
So what is the difference between judgment and calling someone to account?
- To Judge: to make a decision concerning the rightness or wrongness of an action; to sit in authority over a decision (I.E, to be judicial); to mete out a punishment or fine
- To Hold Accountable: To call for an accounting of actions; to review; to have oversight over
So there is a clear difference- in judging the decision of whether or not a behavior is inherently good or bad is a decision being actively made by the judger. Whereas in holding accountable, that decision is less clear cut. I can hold a friend accountable for her spending habits without actively judging whether or not those habits are good or bad. That particular aspect can be left between my friend and God.
Something else worth discussing is the fact that we aren’t ordered not to judge others- at least not in so many terms. We are allowed to judge, and in some cases we’re even told to.
1 Corinthians 5:11-13 But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.”
These verses can be a bit of a mind-bender, because the Corinthians are actually being quoted Old Testament law. One must, in this case, consider why they are being asked to judge amongst themselves. Let’s think about who they are being told to expel: someone who calls himself a brother (a disciple of Christ) but is sexually immoral, greedy, slanderous, etc. They aren’t being told not to eat with anyone who struggles with any one of those things- but rather someone who indulges their desires while claiming to be following Christ.
So we are asked to Judge amongst ourselves and expel the hypocrites from amongst us- but that order comes with a caution- that by the standard we judge others, we ourselves will be judged. So if we judge unfairly, if we cast out someone who is genuinely desirous of a relationship with God, we are putting ourselves in jeopardy.
This is when things get really, really interesting.
James 4: 10-12 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
We’re told to Judge, we’re told not to judge. We’re told to judge righteously on the one hand and then on the other told that when we Judge the law we are disobeying it. So what are we honestly to do?
I think the answer is clear- that with our trust in and knowledge of God, our own holiness will grow. And as our holiness and discernment grows, so will the ability to make fair judgments. The backhand of that is that the more our holiness and discernment grows, the more our knowledge of our own iniquity (past and present) grows, and the more loathe we are to cast judgment. This is a good thing, this is the way God designed it to work.
So yes, we can hold someone accountable without casting judgment. And yes- there are times when it is appropriate for us to judge. But remember that judgment is something we are only to do when necessary and not as a matter of course, and that the Bible is clear that we are not to judge those who don’t believe.
(So all of those people who troll around the internet calling all gay people iniquitous and bound for Hell, well, you are going against the Bible. Just sayin’.)
Convicted (and forgiven)
One of my role models growing up was convicted of manslaughter. I say “convicted” in the sense of tried, and convicted, in the judicial system. While in jail he experienced God’s forgiveness and became “on fire” for God, as Evangelicals like to say. He was so convinced that everyone he knew needed to experience God’s love that he would literally grab men by the ears and beat their heads against the wall screaming “ask God to forgive you!”
Of course, they would. John was a strong man, and sort of frightening when he got his fires up. He was that way even later in life when he understood love and mercy. I can only imagine what he was like when he was still young and DIDN’T fully grasp the concept of God’s love.
Over time he changed. He started to understand our own free enterprise and our personal rights to remain in sin if so desired. You can’t FORCE repentance out of anyone. So over time John grew to understand a better way, and once he was out of the system he started traveling the country from jail to jail, talking about what forgiveness is and isn’t and how important forgiving yourself and accepting God’s forgiveness is in growing past the temptations of sin and becoming a productive member of society. Regardless of what one may or may not believe about God, seeing this man whose face was still hardened from years of hatred and greed tear up while talking about the beauty of forgiveness is a powerful thing.
Everyone respected him, even the ones who disagreed with him.
I bring this all up because my current church has ties with a halfway house for people moving out of the jail system. So from time to time we’ll have people come join our church who accepted Christ while behind bars. And there are people who get very uncomfortable around them. They wonder what they were in jail for. The only time I really care to know what they were convicted of is if it’s pedophilia. I think there’s a certian amount of pragmatism that needs to be involved- I’ve heard of churches being grafted by groups of users who claimed to want to kick the drug habit but actually used the church as a shell for their drug activities- but that isn’t every single person and you shouldn’t expect the worst out of someone who says they wish to change. Be prepared in case the worst should happen, but don’t expect it.
Churches often confuse compassion and naiveness. Compassion doesn’t mean you give a homeless man fifty dollars to get a hotel room, not if he smells like Vodka. Compassion is taking him to get a sandwich and letting him talk to you. Compassion isn’t giving a drug addict a blank check and hoping they use it for something good, it’s putting them in contact with people who can intervene and get them cleaned up. Compassion isn’t bailing out someone who constantly abuses their finances, it’s giving them a place to land when they destroy themselves and then teaching them better patterns. And there ARE times when people MUST suffer the earthly consequences of their sins. If a man beats his children, he SHOULD lose all rights to them. Should we still show him compassion if he claims repentance? ABSOLUTELY- but compassion isn’t giving his children back, it’s teaching him to cope with the consequences of his failings.
And when it comes to the people in the halfway house, we have to understand that our attitude towards them helps feed into how successful their reentry into society will be. If we expect that they should fall, we heap fuel on to a fire that is already burning (as most of them are afraid of falling already, and some of them have established that pattern firmly). Yet if we call out the good in them, affirm their best intentions, and help to give them tools to break the negative patterns in their lives- we can be an integral part of their recovery.
They may have been convicted, yes. But we should trust in God’s forgiveness and power to redeem.
(This one goes out to Amber, who mentioned the fact that I’ve never posted on this particular subject)
