to judge or not to judge; to be judged or not to be judged

Tuesday Men's Bible Study dug into John 10 in which Jesus declares that he ..."comes for judgement." And yet elsewhere in the Bible the English translation says he ..."does not come to judge." After going round and round to split definitional hairs we all could see the twin meanings of 'judge' in the sense of absolute condemnation (or exoneration) versus the sense of evaluating or assessing with discernment to identify what the status of a subject may be. When Jesus comes ..."for judgement" perhaps this means the process can proceed when he is present as a catalyst. So while he himself is not performing the judge function, still it is by his presence that the process can take place.

The Bible makes it clear that mere mortals are no position to pretend to make rulings on another person's (or own) sin or to determine the worthiness of a person's relationship with Lord God. But in the years that we sail the Earthly waters, we can and should be ready to function as reference points and touchstones to each other, judging when a person may be slipping off track and trending toward sin. Pointing out a wrong turn is not the same as assigning blame (or credit), though. Pointing our another's sin can be a prickly thing since "the pot calling the kettle black" is equally likely as the desired outcome of concern for one another being received in the rightful spirit. The Bible tells how to approach what appears to be an offender by going with one or two others and together in solidarity expressing care and being the sounding board that the person can benefit from. As they say, "Until the person knows that you care, then they don't care what you know." One reason to meet "off stage" is to reduce the sensitivity to public gaze, scrutiny, or pressure. 

As creatures filled with emotional response and the instinct for peer benchmarking, it is no good simply teaching or preaching for all brothers and sisters-in-Christ to ignore those sharp feelings or to build one's identity and self-worth on what is eternal, rather than the things filling modern life and preoccupying our budget-conscious minds:

• consumer habit of thinking to judge what is good use of time or money
  
• status measured in Worldly increments or accumulation or personal display
  
• hedging one's bets: to trust in God theoretically, but holding tight to checkbook practically
  
• seeing the events and personalities of nowadays as a standard, an ideal, or reference point
  
• telling your life trajectory of events not in God's terms, but in corporate, consumer, or advertisers' language
  
• perceiving others only by external clues, not looking past the surface and discerning the heart of (self and) others
  

Probably this list is only a fraction of what the modern experience of compartmentalizing God talk, prayer, weekly hour of organized religion ---on the one hand, and routine work-day habits of thinking, relationship, and reaction --on the other hand. With practice, though, it should be possible to see the World with bi-focal vision: one lens for the Worldly regulations and methods to get things done, and one lens to see with one's heart what is maybe not visible to the eye or head. Your true self, and what it is that God loves in you will become the new normal and displace the cacophony of modern lives.