Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. John 7:24, NASB
Our pastor has been preaching through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, and 7) since October. Today he preached through Matthew 7:1-6, which as I hope many of you know was the foundation for my series Judge Not!, which I wrote back in 2006. One thing I really appreciated in his sermon was that as he got to verse 6, which is where Jesus tells us that we must be discerning; i.e. that we must make proper judgments, he quoted John 7:24, which I placed at the top of this post. He even contrasted improper judging that Jesus was preaching against in Matthew 7 with proper judging that requires discernment and humility and the mind of Christ. I almost fell out of my seat when he gave the example of righteous judgment being warning Christians against the unbiblical preaching that was preached this very day by the pastor of the largest SBC church in California.