Hey There, Judgy McJudgerpants!
There are two types of judging.
- Judging an individual’s heart-motives which is directly tied to condemning them.This is the kind of judging that Jesus, Paul, and James sharply denounce. It’s the judgment of the heart.
- The other type of judging is the act of evaluating the morality of an action or the rightness of a word, statement, or teaching. Not according to one’s own personal preferences, the dictates of their conscience, or the standards of their denomination, movement, or Christian tribe (e.g., Colossians 2:16; Romans 14), but according to the standards of Jesus Christ as spelled out in His Word.
So it’s right to evaluate the merits of an action based on what the New Testament clearly teaches. But it’s wrong to judge a person’s motives.
