When is it right to judge somebody's actions?

"Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough?"   
1 Corinthians 5:6 (NIV)

What Paul says in this chapter is as foreign to our current thinking about judgment as an AA meeting in a liquor store!  Notice: Paul encourages them to pass judgment on a fellow believer for his lifestyle of sexual immorality.  He tells them to "hand him over to Satan."  (Which does not mean praying for him to be tortured or sent to hell.  It simply means to stop fellowship with him as a believer, to let him see what things are really like out in Satan's world.)  Paul reserves his strongest comments for their feelings of pride over their acceptance of this sin.

Do you know anyone today who has a sense of personal pride over the fact that they are accepting of any and every lifestyle?  We all do...  it sometimes seems as if this attitude of non-judgmentalism is THE guiding philosophy of our times. This chapter gives some of the clearest directions in all of the Bible as to how believers should handle this issue of judgment.    While this is a subject that entire books have been written on, let me give you four truths from this passage that begin to clear the muddy waters in our societies thinking about judgment

1. We ARE to call something right or wrong based on God's standard.  This chapter could not have even been written if Paul didn't have God's standard to point to.  (This means it is OK for us to stand up for standards and moral laws in our society.)
   
2. We ARE NOT to condemn unbelievers in a personal way for the fact that they do not follow God's ways.  The truth is: those who do not have Christ in their lives will not have the heart to change or the power to change until they get to know him.   You don't have to approve of someone's lifestyle to accept them as a person.
   
3. We ARE to personally pass judgment on believers who are refusing to follow God's ways.  The church is a family - and families that cannot honestly confront their problems are dysfunctional!  Paul even outlines the specific way we are to "judge" believers who refuse to change:  cut off our relationship with them.
   
4. To refuse to judge is not a sign of love or acceptance, it is actually a sign of pride.  I feel morally superior because I don't judge you.  The problem, Paul reminds us, is that all of us are strongly influenced by our relationships.  If I have a close relationship with someone involved in a sinful lifestyle, I'm lying to myself if I don't see that I will eventually be drawn toward that sin also.  "A little leaven leavens the whole loaf."

This chapter is filled with hard to hear challenges.  Here are three to think about today.  Do you need to start honestly calling a sin a sin?  Do you need to stop personally passing judgment on the unbelievers that you are surrounded with at work?  Do you need to cut off a relationship with a believer who is dragging you down?

- Tom Holladay

From Pastors.com devotional on 3/18/00