Judgment, Confession and Playing God

Matthew 7:1-2 & 5

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. . . . 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.

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)

[Jesus’ warning against judgment] doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have high standards of behavior for ourselves and our world, but that the temptation to look down on each other for moral failure is itself a temptation to play God. . . . [H]e is warning that the very people who seem most eager to tell others what to do (or more likely what not to do) are the people who should take a long look in the mirror before they begin (70).

A. Orendorff

A wise person once wrote, “Relief never comes by confessing the sins of other people. Everybody has to confess their own.” As much as we may like to confess by way of proxy (or better yet, to force a confession by way of well-meaning coercion), the truth remains the same: everyone must confess their own. It does us no good to confess the sins of others, whether to ourselves, to them, to other people or to God. Nor can we force confession (even, as we say to ourselves, if it’s “for their own good”). Our lot is to examine ourselves, to “get the log out of our own eye,” and only after wards to gently lead other to see and own the speck that belong to them. How much easier it would be to just play God.