Homosexual activists, and their straight minions and familiars, wield as one of their primary weapons of dis-information, the twisting of Scripture, in order to support their abominable practices, and to bash Christians for cherrypicking which Laws in Scripture that we follow while ignoring others, and in doing so they pave the way to dismissing our anti-perversion position as being hypocritical and selective. Sadly, many Christians also are similarly ignorant of the correct exegesis of many of these passages cited by the sodomites that we ( supposedly ) fall short of ( pardon the dangling preposition). Many times I have seen, on many pervert websites and Facebook pages, the charge that “they know Scripture better than us”, and that they should “not have to teach us our own religion”. To these people, perverts or mis-guided Christians, I am here to set the record straight ( pun intended ).
In a recent article, specifically in the comments section, two of the most common charges, predictably enough, were brought up as admonishments to the excellent article:
[1] Matthew 7:1, “Judge not lest ye be Judged.”
[2] John 8:7, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
It is the first one that I will address here, and John 8:7 in a follow up article.
Mathew 7:1 – Judge not lest ye be judged
Like John 8:7, this is probable one of the most misunderstood and cherry-picked verses in the Bible and is frequently used by those to counter others pointing out their sin; implying that we are not to judge other people. Nothing could be further from the truth.
One does not draw meaning from a single verse, rather its meaning is drawn from the consideration of the surrounding text, both antecedent and precedent, and against the totality of Scripture as regards to the subject in question.
One properly exegetes Scripture using a correct hermeneutic, historicism ( hermeneutical historicism not eschatological historicism ). Historicism is the primary mode of hermeneutics; it assigns a central and basic significance to a specific context, such as historical period, geographical place, political and social backdrop of the period, and local customs and culture. As such it is in contrast to individualist theories of knowledges such as empiricism and rationalism, which neglect the role of traditions. Historicism, therefore, is strictly within the camp of hermeneutics, because it places great importance on cautious, rigorous and contextualized interpretation of information, or relativist, because it rejects notions of universal, fundamental and immutable interpretations.
So, if you take this verse by itself, and ignore the remaining verses, and the rest of Scripture, yeah you might get that idea. But again, one does not interpret Scripture by taking one verse out of context.
The remaining verses go on to explain what Matt 7:1 means – and actually tells us how to Judge. Matt 7:1-6 refers to hypocritical judgment; do not judge someone for the SAME SIN that you are committing, ie, don’t judge your neighbor for stealing office supplies from work when you regularly steal yourself in a different manner.
In Matthew 7:3 Jesus mocks the Pharisees ( who were corrupt ) who struggle with great sin but takes it upon themselves to “fix” or “judge” another person who commits a less serious “similar” sin.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
See how plank and sawdust ( or beam and splinter in some versions ) are similar, they are both wood, the same thing, one is simply lesser than another. This is what tells us that Matt 7:1-6 means ‘do not Judge others for the same sin you are committing, do not judge others for the same sin that you can be measured by’.
Basically, Jesus said that those in ecclesiastical authority over others who commit and struggle with worse sins ought not to “nit pick” those with lesser, similar struggles. It is not a blanket condemnation of Judging, lest why do other Scriptures tell us to Judge, like Jesus said in John 7:24, “judge with a righteous Judgment”?
The metaphor of the plank and the sawdust ( beam or splinter ) is an analogy of greater and lesser sins, a side note to those who also believe that all sins are equal – this belief simply is not Scriptural, Scripture repeatedly defines greater and lesser degrees of sin. But I digress…
Scripture does tell us that we cannot discern ( judge ) the hearts of men, the state of their Salvation, but that we can ( and must ) discern and judge what men do and say and their actions, but we are in no position to judge their hearts. This is where most people go off the rails as to ‘judging.’
Also, most people mistakenly believe this applies to them – it does not. If you are not in ecclesiastical authority over others, Matthew 7:1-6 does not apply to you. Just like in John 8:7, this verse does not apply to the common man, Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees and admonishing them, as they were in legal ecclesiastical authority over others, and could bring charges against the common man ( in a LEGAL sense ) for their sins and wherein they would receive punishment in ecclesiastical courts.
Which brings me to my next point…..
The same people also mis-interpret the word Judging as Judging in a Moral sense. This is incorrect, it refers to judging in a LEGAL ( ecclesiastical ) sense. This is where the English translations can cause problems in the proper exegesis of Biblical text.
In Matthew 7:1, if we repair to original Greek, the language of scholarship that the New Testament was composed in, the word used is κρίνω, which means “to go to Law” and is synonymous with the Hebrew word, שׁפט which means “to rule on” or “judge legally.”
In Matthew 7:1, it is therefore referring to judgment in a legal capacity, as the Pharisees were in legal ecclesiastical authority, acting as pseudo-prosecutors, over the populace – this is not being used in the English moral tense, which is another Greek word entirely, διακρίνω; the Greek word κρίνω is not used in the NT much at all as it is very specifically about a legal judgment. As English does not have separate words for “Judge Legally” and “Judge Morally,” the exact meaning of the English word Judge has to be inferred from context, and both διακρίνω and κρίνω are translated as the same English word, Judge, even though they mean two different things.
Koine Greek has about 10 different words for the verb “to judge” – English does not. So no matter what Greek verb was used, it all got translated to the same English word, which is very misleading. That is why it is helpful to know Koine Greek and to be able to read and write it. So again, repairing to the original Greek, the word used is Judge Legally, not Judge Morally.
So to the arm-chair “pervert” theologians, and the sadly misled Christian, it is not us who are not following Scripture, as we know exactly what it means; it is your ignorance of the proper exegesis of Scripture that compels you to charge us with failure to follow the command to ‘not judge others,’ as that is not what that verse, or the surrounding passages mean, and it certainly does not correlate with the totality of Scriptural teachings on Judging – we all judge things and people every day. We cannot help but doing so. Jesus did not ever teach that we are to allow perversion and all manner of sin to live among us unchecked, hold hands and sing Kumbaya. One thing Christians are not called to do is to be tolerant of sin and of that which is abhorrent to Almighty God.
And that’s just the way it is.
Authors note: This is part 1 in a series. Please see the next installation in this series, part 2, on John 8:7
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