What exactly is "judging others"

[namer0331]

What would be the sin of judging others. Let’s say you are at church and find someone dressed immodestly and say why is he/she dressed in such a way? Is this judging others?

or lets say another instance, you find someone cursing unnecessarily and say why is he/she using such and such language?

Are these examples of judging others?

Or is judging others means that you are considering yourself better than others and not being humble…

Please help!

 

[Abu]

namer0331 #1

Follow Christ and the Sacred Scriptures. We may not judge motives, intentions, and guilt before God but we are commanded by Christ Himself to judge actions, speech, writing against truth and in this way we can help others by offering truth.

The rule from Christ is:
“Judge not that you be not judged.” (Mt 7:1)

“Stop judging by appearances, but judge justly.” (Jn 7:24).

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will know them” (Mt 7:15, 16).

“Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. So by their fruits you will know them.” (Mt 7:19-20).

St Paul adds:
“Test everything: retain what is good.” (1Thess 5:21).

“The spiritual person, however, can judge everything but is not subject to judgment by anyone.” (1 Cor 2:15).

“I, for my part, although absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as if present, pronounced judgment on the one who has committed this deed…” (1 Cor 5:3; read 1-13).

“I am speaking as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I am saying.” (1 Cor 10:15).

“Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 Jn 4:1).

And, “I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.” (Rev 3:16).

 

[George_Stegmeir]

What would be the sin of judging others. Let’s say you are at church and find someone dressed immodestly and say why is he/she dressed in such a way? Is this judging others?

or lets say another instance, you find someone cursing unnecessarily and say why is he/she using such and such language?

Are these examples of judging others?

Or is judging others means that you are considering yourself better than others and not being humble…

Please help!

Actually it is mostly your last phrase. In short, it means mind your own business. As an example if you berate someone who is cursing in public, you very well may learn some new words; that is, if you don’t get punched in the nose!
If you know the person who is behaving badly and you absolutely feel the need to correct them, do it in private. Even so, be prepared to lose some friends and friendly acquaintances…and, you run the risk of being labled as a prude or puritan by your social circle.
Sorry, but that is the society you live in.

 

[fhansen]

We have no right to condemn, to judge others as deserving condemnation. We absolutely have the right, and duty, to judge right from wrong, to distinguish between the two. A verse Abu listed, John 7:24, points to this correct understanding:
"Stop judging by appearances, but judge justly."

 

[animalis]

Judging has its utility in the spiritual life. For instance, the intellectual gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the book of the prophet Isaiah (cf. Isa 11:2) - Knowledge, Wisdom, and Counsel perfect the intellect in order to judge by the breath of the Spirit revealed in dogma by the establishment of what is ever henceforth revealed in the Divine Word.

Knowledge perfects in order to judge worldly things, thereby we reject the vanities and set our delight in the eternal desire of heaven, in other words the theological virtue of hope.

Wisdom perfects in order to judge divine things, thereby we correct our affections to the first truth which is love itself, by this correction we have an interior disposition for the theological virtue of charity, that is good will, exterior dispositions would be benevolence.

Counsel perfects in order to judge our own actions, thereby we set a command on our execution of the virtues of Justice, which is the greatest of the moral virtues, Fortitude, and Temperance. This command is reason. For St. Thomas Aquinas said reason consists in rule and command.

Judging others falls under the moral life, and the greatest in this respect is the Cardinal Virtue of Justice. But this presupposes law and authority to observe the law. If to judge is to put a someone in a place or a state of mind, this is left for God to do, unless a person is ordained by law.

Judgment is the considered the second act of reason. The first is considered understanding or insight. The third is considered reasoning or argumentation.

Insight is indicated with a term, such as “darkness of sin”, “light of faith”, “assent”, and “Sunday”. Judgment is indicated by propositions, such as a well formed sentence, a basic of these would be, “All Catholics legitimately assent to the Pope.” Reasoning would be an argument to form a conclusion, as example of this could be done in three sentences:

Sunday is a Holy day of obligation. Catholics of a parish morally assent to a Church on Holy days of obligation. Therefore, on Sundays Catholics of a parish morally assent to a Church.

 

[Brendan_64]

What would be the sin of judging others. Let’s say you are at church and find someone dressed immodestly and say why is he/she dressed in such a way? Is this judging others?

Yes. You are using your own personal view of what is and what is not modest, applying it to another person, and then telling him off for not meeting the standard you have set for him.

How others dress at Mass really is none of our business. Leave that to the priest.

or lets say another instance, you find someone cursing unnecessarily and say why is he/she using such and such language?

Again, unless this person is being directly offensive and abusive to someone, then the best course of action is to mind one’s own business.

Are these examples of judging others?

I would say that they are, particularly the first example.

 

[JRKH]

Some good advice above.
I would suggest taking one passage from Mt and pondering on this prayerfully…
[INDENT1"Judge not, that you be not judged.**2For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4Or 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? 5You 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. 6"Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you.
(Bolding Mine) [/INDENT]
We often here the opening verse, “Judge not lest you be judged” but we here the second verse much less often, “with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged”. The rest of the passage is basically expounding on this. We will be judged by how we judge.

This theme is repeated in the Lord’s prayer…
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
It is a pet peeve of mine that when we say the Our Father, we break up this sentence - especially in church - by taking a breath in the middle of it. It’s all one thought and really should be said as one thought - in one breath.

Anyway - for me - the above is the root and all the other great advice given above builds on this and this builds upon the second great commandment to love others as you love yourself - to do unto others as you would have done unto you.

These are the principles that underlay the idea of not judging and or proper judgement.

Peace
James

 

[ChurchSoldier]

As James alluded, context counts. This is from Romans 2:

2 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

Now out of context this would fall nto the “you should never judge” camp. But if we look at what he wrote just before in chapter 1:

28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Sound Judgemental? Righteous judgement according to God’s precepts.

Now the problem with judgement is that most who want to judge are the one’s who should be looking at the plank in their own eye. But on the other hand, many Christians have been intimidated into being quiet about their faith and some use the “I shouldn’t judge” as a way to prevent criticism of standing for the faith. Both cases provide an opportunity for self reflection.

It is ok for Christans to make judgement. Just make sure you are doing it according to GOd’s precepts, not your own, and make sure you are not using it as an excuse for gossip.

Thanks for the thread.

 

[ThunderFox]

We are suppose to judge others by telling them if they are going to hell by there sins, but we cant judge hypocritally

like

I can tell a homosexual is going to hell, because it is love and warning him that if he dosent repent he will perish

But if i was a homosexual then i cant tell him that because that would be judging hypocritically and hyporcrites get greater condemption in hell.

 

[Brendan_64]

We are suppose to judge others by telling them if they are going to hell by there sins, but we cant judge hypocritally

No we cannot. Not even the Pope can tell someone that they are going to Hell.

I can tell a homosexual is going to hell, because it is love and warning him that if he dosent repent he will perish

No you cannot. You cannot tell someone that they are going to Hell. You do not know that, nobody knows that. Only God will make that judgement.

The Church has never said that someone will go to Hell. No human can do that. To tell someone that they will go to Hell, is quite blasphemous as by doing so you would be putting yourself in the position of God and making a judgement on the state of their soul. You can tell a person that the Church teaches that homosexual acts are gravely sinful, but you cannot, ever, tell someone that they are going to Hell, no matter what they have done.

I would suspect that it any of us here ever do get to Heaven that there will be quite a few surprise faces in there.

We cannot ever say that a particular person (or group of people) is going to Hell.

 

[Parisian]

When I hear “judging others” I think of someone telling another they are going to hell because of a sin they may be commiting.

 

[Abu]

Parisian
Then meditate on the Gospels and on St Paul where judging actions, speech and writing against truth is mandated by Christ and St Paul. [Post #2].

 

[Parisian]

Parisian
Then meditate on the Gospels and on St Paul where judging actions, speech and writing against truth is mandated by Christ and St Paul. [Post #2].

Pointing out sin is one thing. However, we can not tell someone they are going to Hell. That is not for us to decide.

 

[SurlyMermaid]

I’m new to this, but I keep reading in Scripture to do everything in love.

Yeah, grabbing my kid and yanking them out of the road might cause some minor injury, but that’s love. Think I’m better than the person who wanders into the road is a horse of a different color, judgment.

Personally, I stay out of the clothing at church business, unless it’s my kids. (Hubby already got my brief discourse on why I believe we should look nice at church! )

As for the swearing, over coffee a couple of months ago I stopped my potty mouth friend and said gently, “Hey, Friend of Surly Mermaid… I know when we met I talked like Carole Lombard and would have embarrassed a biker, but, I don’t know… lately cursing hurts my ears. Especially out in this bookstore, with little ears, let’s drop the swearing.” She was totally cool about it. Had she not been, that’s her issue; I said my piece. I totally did it out of love, for myself, for her, and for the poor dudes sitting near us!

Great thread. I’m so grateful to be learning!

SM