The aim of this arti­cle

Is assess­ment nec­es­sar­i­ly some­thing neg­a­tive? Do the terms “assess” and “judge” mean the same thing? Is it pos­si­ble and are we per­mit­ted to look into the heart of anoth­er per­son and assess them, or is that up to God alone? In the fol­low­ing arti­cle we will present our rea­sons for believ­ing that assess­ment plays an impor­tant role in a per­son­’s rela­tion­ship with God and in church life.

1 Introductory Thoughts on Jesus’ Statement: “Judge not!”

A phrase that can be often heard among peo­ple belong­ing to var­i­ous Chris­t­ian denom­i­na­tions is the Bible pas­sage:

”Judge not, that you be not judged.”(Matthew 7:1)

Many peo­ple think that every per­son stands before God alone and that no-one else can say any­thing objec­tive about the life and actions of anoth­er per­son, and cer­tain­ly not in mat­ters con­cern­ing his sal­va­tion (whether or not some­one is saved). Oth­er people’s lives, espe­cial­ly in the area of reli­gion, are seen as a kind of pri­vate sphere that is large­ly or com­plete­ly “taboo” for out­siders. Con­se­quent­ly, every kind of cri­tique is regard­ed as judge­ment and intol­er­ance, an ille­gal vio­la­tion of this “sacred per­son­al space”. Peo­ple have a sim­i­lar approach when it comes to assess­ing and eval­u­at­ing the beliefs and teach­ings of dif­fer­ent reli­gious groups. But if one con­sid­ers the opin­ion or teach­ing of a group to be erro­neous, the nec­es­sary con­clu­sion is that they are trav­el­ling down the wrong path. In the fol­low­ing text we want to exam­ine this ques­tion in the light of Jesus’ words and the Chris­t­ian teach­ing.

2 The Difference Between Assessing and Judging

Assess­ing and judg­ing are regard­ed by many as being the same although there is an impor­tant dif­fer­ence between the two terms. The term “assess” is not nec­es­sar­i­ly neg­a­tive since it sim­ply means tak­ing a stance on what is good and bad, right and wrong and is actu­al­ly just the prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion of the prin­ci­ples revealed by God in the Bible. Dis­cern­ing between good and bad is just as impor­tant in our spir­i­tu­al life as it is con­cern­ing earth­ly mat­ters. For many peo­ple words like judg­ing and judge­ment have neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tions and imply a bad atti­tude. Assess­ment, on the oth­er hand, comes from the desire to get to know and accept the truth about a mat­ter, and to be able to help oth­ers. If the moti­va­tion to help is lack­ing, even a com­plete­ly jus­ti­fied and appro­pri­ate admo­ni­tion will become a love­less and mer­ci­less con­dem­na­tion. There are sev­er­al pas­sages in the Bible which speak against self-right­eous and phar­i­sa­ic judge­ment (e. g. Matthew 9:9–13; Luke 18:9–14 etc.). In the fol­low­ing well-known and, unfor­tu­nate­ly often mis­in­ter­pret­ed warn­ing, Jesus referred to this very unlov­ing atti­tude:

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judge­ment you pro­nounce you will be judged, and with the mea­sure you use it will be mea­sured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your broth­er’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your broth­er, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, when there is the log in your own eye? You hyp­ocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clear­ly to take the speck out of your broth­er’s eye. (Matthew 7:1–5)

The pas­sage address­es a haughty and hyp­o­crit­i­cal per­son who self-right­eous­ly points at the sins of oth­er peo­ple with­out want­i­ng to take notice of his own. It does not mean that we are for­bid­den to remove the speck from our broth­er’s eye. Jesus crit­i­cized the con­demn­ing atti­tude using this pic­ture and appeals to us to have an hon­est, hum­ble and self-crit­i­cal atti­tude and turn from our own sins. Then we will be able to help oth­ers: “…then you will see clear­ly to take the speck out of your broth­er’s eye” (verse 5). What Jesus says here gives no sup­port to the wide­spread opin­ion that anoth­er per­son­’s “specks” or sins are none of my busi­ness. Every­one expe­ri­ences a speck in their eye as a great dis­com­fort. It would be unlov­ing not to want to help.

The par­al­lel pas­sage to Matthew 7:1–5 is found in Luke 6:37–42:

Judge not, and you will not be judged; con­demn not, and you will not be con­demned; for­give, and you will be for­giv­en; (Luke 6:37)

Here we find a par­al­lel between Jesus’ warn­ing against judg­ing and a warn­ing against con­demn­ing and the appeal to for­give oth­er peo­ple. These par­al­lels show that judg­ing is meant here in the sense of con­demn­ing and the unwill­ing­ness to for­give oth­ers.

Two vers­es lat­er (verse 39), Jesus asks, “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?” That is to say, if some­one does not admit his own sins, he can­not receive God’s for­give­ness. Con­se­quent­ly, he is unable pass on God’s grace and love to oth­er peo­ple. He is unable to show oth­er peo­ple the way out of their sins. How­ev­er, if some­one admits and regrets his sins he receives for­give­ness and will be moti­vat­ed by thank­ful­ness and love to want to help oth­ers also find rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with God:

Wash me thor­ough­ly from my iniq­ui­ty, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my trans­gres­sions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be jus­ti­fied in your words and blame­less in your judge­ment. …Restore to me the joy of your sal­va­tion, and uphold me with a will­ing spir­it. Then I will teach trans­gres­sors your ways, and sin­ners will return to you. (Psalm 51:2–4,12–13)

So the par­al­lel pas­sage from Luke 6:37–42 makes it even clear­er that Jesus’ inten­tion in Matthew 7:1–5 was to warn peo­ple against judg­ing in a hyp­o­crit­i­cal and unlov­ing way with­out exam­in­ing them­selves in front of God.
The con­text of these vers­es about not judg­ing in both gospels encour­ages sober crit­i­cism and assess­ment: We are com­pelled to ask our­selves, “Who is wor­thy of receiv­ing our pearls?“¹, “Who is it who will not enter the king­dom of God?” Jesus tells us we will rec­og­nize false prophets accord­ing to their fruits—which is a direct invi­ta­tion to make an assess­ment.

3 What is the Significance of Assessment in our Relationship with God?

In this world cor­rupt­ed by sin, some­one who seeks what is good must test every­thing thor­ough­ly. Paul expos­es the dan­ger of decep­tion quite dras­ti­cal­ly in 2 Corinthi­ans 11:14–15:

And no won­der, for even Satan dis­guis­es him­self as an angel of light. So it is no sur­prise if his ser­vants, also, dis­guise them­selves as ser­vants of right­eous­ness. Their end will cor­re­spond to their deeds.

God, in his great mer­cy and love, has shown us the way to Him­self through Jesus, which every­one has the free­dom to choose. He has also exposed wicked­ness and sin for what they are.

You are my friends if you do what I com­mand you. No longer do I call you ser­vants, for the ser­vant does not know what his mas­ter is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:14–15)

If I had not come and spo­ken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Who­ev­er hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hat­ed both me and my Father. (John 15:22–24)

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are tru­ly my dis­ci­ples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31–32)

It is only pos­si­ble to live with God if we want to live in the truth that God has laid as a foun­da­tion (Romans 12:1–2). Find­ing, and most impor­tant­ly act­ing accord­ing to the truth and expos­ing and abstain­ing from false­hood are there­fore prime neces­si­ties. If some­one does not do this, they will miss the path to eter­nal life.

Enter by the nar­row gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruc­tion, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is nar­row and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13–14)

But the hour is com­ing, and is now here, when the true wor­ship­pers will wor­ship the Father in spir­it and truth, for the Father is seek­ing such peo­ple to wor­ship him. God is spir­it, and those who wor­ship him must wor­ship in spir­it and truth. (John 4:23–24)

Watch your­selves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Every­one who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teach­ing of Christ, does not have God. Who­ev­er abides in the teach­ing has both the Father and the Son. (2 John 8–9)

The fol­low­ing exam­ple can illus­trate more pre­cise­ly what we mean.
If some­one is prepar­ing a dish of mush­rooms, will he not first make sure that each of the mush­rooms is edi­ble and not poi­so­nous? No doubt! How much more care­ful­ly should we test every­thing in mat­ters con­cern­ing our rela­tion­ship with God and our sal­va­tion? Two peo­ple who make oppos­ing and con­tra­dic­to­ry state­ments about the same issue can­not both be right. This is also valid for ques­tions of bib­li­cal doc­trine, as in the fol­low­ing exam­ples:
Does God deter­mine the eter­nal des­tiny of peo­ple (pre­des­ti­na­tion), or do we have a free will? Does hell exist, or do all peo­ple go to God? Is the Holy Spir­it a per­son or just a pow­er? Can some­one lose his sal­va­tion, or is that impos­si­ble? Do humans have a sin­ful nature or not?

There are many more exam­ples of doc­trines from var­i­ous reli­gious groups and church­es we could name, which, as the above men­tioned points, are not mere­ly abstract the­o­log­i­cal dis­cus­sions, but which have a fun­da­men­tal impact on our lives. In fact, these very con­tra­dic­tions require all who search earnest­ly for the truth to ask them­selves, “What is truth? What is God like? How can I live a life pleas­ing to Him? How can we find true peace and ful­fill­ment in God?

Hence, we find many exhor­ta­tions in the Bible to test and assess every­thing and every­one.

…for at one time you were dark­ness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as chil­dren of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to dis­cern what is pleas­ing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruit­ful works of dark­ness, but instead expose them. (Eph­esians 5:8–11)

Do not quench the Spir­it. Do not despise prophe­cies, but test every­thing; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. (1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:19–22)

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep­’s cloth­ing but inward­ly are rav­en­ous wolves. You will rec­og­nize them by their fruits. Are grapes gath­ered from thorn bush­es, or figs from this­tles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the dis­eased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree can­not bear bad fruit, nor can a dis­eased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will rec­og­nize them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15–20)

4 The Importance of Assessment in the Life of the Christian Community

Assess­ment and love are very close­ly con­nect­ed. In order to give our broth­ers and sis­ters the help that God real­ly wants to give them, we need to try to under­stand where they are at in their rela­tion­ship with God—what are their weak­ness­es and sins and where they need help—by con­sid­er­ing their life and deeds. If some­one desires to please God, he will be grate­ful for this help.
Sad­ly, many reli­gious peo­ple are too proud and feel offend­ed when you address prob­lems in their spir­i­tu­al life. It is cer­tain­ly eas­i­er for every­one if, in order to avoid a prob­a­ble con­flict, you avoid con­fronting anoth­er per­son with his errors and call­ing him to repen­tance. This very atti­tude, how­ev­er, of choos­ing a seem­ing­ly eas­i­er way, led the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ties of the ear­ly cen­turies to sev­er­al dis­as­trous changes:

• Chris­tians stopped shar­ing their lives open­ly with their broth­ers and sis­ters. Broth­er­ly affec­tion and love were no longer nat­ur­al and as a result, they could no longer be sure about their broth­ers’ spir­i­tu­al state.
• Par­al­lel to the per­ceiv­able decrease in the prac­tice of admo­ni­tion and church dis­ci­pline, their fight for sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion became less and less intense. The “small­er” sins remained hid­den, and the con­gre­ga­tions applied stricter mea­sures only in the case of obvi­ous trans­gres­sions that often reached a very world­ly lev­el.
• The lack of nec­es­sary help, admo­ni­tion and encour­age­ment and the unwill­ing­ness to exclude hard­ened sin­ners pro­vid­ed rich soil for the church­es to be watered down by the pres­ence of many pseu­do-Chris­tians and unbe­liev­ers.
• Per­sons who were swift to action and had good orga­ni­za­tion­al abil­i­ties, and who were able to give a good impres­sion—gained great influ­ence and author­i­ty. They assumed “lead­ing posi­tions” in the con­gre­ga­tions and their deci­sions and actions were not and could not be exam­ined by the whole church.
• As a con­se­quence of these things, Chris­tian­i­ty opened itself up to false teach­ings and false con­cepts of God. The church ceased to be an exam­ple that assess­es the world and calls it to a change of life.

Fore­see­ing these dan­gers, the Bible moti­vates us to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for our broth­ers and sis­ters, to encour­age and admon­ish them. Only in this way is it pos­si­ble to main­tain the love and puri­ty that are in accor­dance with God’s will in the church.

Take care, broth­ers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbe­liev­ing heart, lead­ing you to fall away from the liv­ing God. But exhort one anoth­er every day, as long as it is called “today”, that none of you may be hard­ened by the deceit­ful­ness of sin. (Hebrews 3:12–13)

If your broth­er sins, go and show him his fault in pri­vate; if he lis­tens to you, you have won your broth­er. But if he does not lis­ten to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three wit­ness­es every fact may be con­firmed. If he refus­es to lis­ten to them, tell it to the church; and if he refus­es to lis­ten even to the church, let him be to you as a Gen­tile and a tax col­lec­tor. (Matthew 18:15–17, NASB)

But now I am writ­ing to you that you must not asso­ciate with any­one who claims to be a broth­er or sis­ter but is sex­u­al­ly immoral or greedy, an idol­ater or slan­der­er, a drunk­ard or swindler. Do not even eat with such peo­ple. What busi­ness is it of mine to judge those out­side the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those out­side. “Expel the wicked per­son from among you.” (1 Corinthi­ans 5:11–13, NIV)

Besides the urgent call to encour­age our broth­ers we find many exam­ples of how the Chris­tians guard­ed the teach­ing and the church, which is the “pil­lar and but­tress of the truth” (1 Tim­o­thy 3:15).

Beloved, do not believe every spir­it, but test the spir­its to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world…. We are from God. Who­ev­er knows God lis­tens to us; who­ev­er is not from God does not lis­ten to us. By this we know the Spir­it of truth and the spir­it of error. (1 John 4:1, 6)

I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you can­not bear with those who are evil, but have test­ed those who call them­selves apos­tles and are not, and found them to be false. (Rev­e­la­tion 2:2)

The fol­low­ing pas­sage shows us how nat­ur­al it was for the first cen­tu­ry com­mu­ni­ties to assess peo­ple whom they want­ed to help to come to repen­tance:

But if all proph­esy, and an unbe­liev­er or out­sider enters, he is con­vict­ed by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are dis­closed, and so, falling on his face, he will wor­ship God and declare that God is real­ly among you. (1 Corinthi­ans 14:24—25)

Jesus him­self showed peo­ple clear­ly what sep­a­rates them from God (e.g. Matthew 23:13–36 and 19:16–22), even though he knew that by this he would make ene­mies for him­self. If we want to help oth­ers to find God, we must fol­low Jesus’ exam­ple, even if it means fac­ing con­flicts and rejec­tion, just as Jesus did.

In sum­ma­ry we can say that the kind of assess­ment that the Bible talks about means lov­ing­ly show­ing peo­ple on the basis of God’s word what God’s ways are and where they are not liv­ing in accor­dance with them. Jesus was­n’t alone in doing this. He instruct­ed his dis­ci­ples and every­one who wants to fol­low him to do the same. The pre­req­ui­site is that we exam­ine and assess our own lives accord­ing to the stan­dard of the Bible, sub­mit­ting our­selves to God in humil­i­ty and obe­di­ence. The New Tes­ta­ment con­firms this prac­tice in many pas­sages. Assess­ment is, in itself, not a neg­a­tive term. Rather it is insep­a­ra­bly linked to lov­ing the truth, our broth­ers and sis­ters, and all peo­ple.

1. Matthew 7:6 ↩