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I couldn’t help but notice the court case regard­ing the wife of Joel Osteen (a well-known pas­tor). I’m not inter­ested in the case, but I did notice the dif­fi­culty in putting a proper jury together. Here’s a line from a prospec­tive juror: “As a Chris­t­ian, I wouldn’t feel it would be my place to judge them.”

(Please par­don me while I tear my hair out.)

I appre­ci­ate that this prospec­tive juror is tak­ing seri­ously “Do not judge, or you too will be judged,” but we need to read that com­mand in con­text: Matthew 7:1 – 5. Judg­ment of a person’s behav­ior is wrong if unfair, hyp­o­crit­i­cal and arro­gant. Proper judg­ment, as Lewis Smedes says, is necessary:

I would sug­gest that, in our day and age, we need more — not less — judg­ment. Mod­ern Amer­i­cans suf­fer from a fear of judg­ing. Pass­ing judg­ment on the behav­ior of fel­low human beings is con­sid­ered an act of medieval, unde­mo­c­ra­tic intolerance.

Why? Because, our cul­ture tells us, we are all flawed peo­ple, and peo­ple with flaws have no right to judge other people’s flaws. Fur­ther­more, mod­ern Amer­i­cans do not believe that there are objec­tive stan­dards by which to judge. And where there are no stan­dards, there is noth­ing by which to mea­sure behavior.

Stan­dards are vital. “In a sin­ful world, no com­mu­nity can exist for long where nobody is ever held account­able.” (Smedes, again) There is no holi­ness with­out stan­dards, no love with­out judgment.

All I can say is, please judge me. Just do it fairly, humbly and with love, and always aim for repen­tance and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. And of course, know that full, final and eter­nal judg­ment is God’s alone.