"Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned."Therefore, any judging is wrong and to be deplored. Right?
Luke 6:37 NASB
Then why might Jesus say,
"Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."
John 7:18 NASB
Why does Paul tell the church in Corinth
"For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present."
1 Corinthians 5:3 NASB
If I am going to be a witness to others with the goal of them becoming part of the family of God, I will have to come to a conclusion whether I believe they are already Christians or not. Otherwise, I'd have to treat Billy Graham and Michael Newdow the same. Equally, if a church is going to practice the biblical mandate of Church discipline, it will be impossible to treat any action we didn't commit ourselves as morally neutral or beneficial.
We should heed what Jesus taught us in Luke 6, in particular what he says about mercy. Yet, building a nugget theology of "any judgment of what things are like at any time is to be deplored" will not make us more, but less obedient to Scripture. It'll merely make us pander to the Zeitgeist.
