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Faith

Judge not…

One passage that seems to be missing from many Christians’ Bibles is chapter 2 of Paul’s letter to the Romans, which begins: “There is no excuse for you to condemn others, because when you condemn others you are condemning yourself because you do the same things.” Paul speaks very strongly against judgmentalism; so why is it that Christians are so often perceived as self-righteous finger pointers, more known for what they stand against than for what they stand for?

There are plenty of passages in the Bible which give guidance about how a follower of Jesus should live; however these are guidance for the believer, and not ammunition for the believer to hurl against others. Paul comes down very strongly against hypocrisy. No-one is perfect; everyone fails at least some of the time. Thus no-one can accuse others of wrong-doing without pointing the finger back at himself or herself.

Perfection in all matters of behaviour is possible, as Jesus demonstrated, but it is a standard which no-one else has managed to reach. So when you criticise someone else for being bad or doing wrong things, you are criticising yourself. It does not matter how hard you have tried or how you compare yourself to other people, you are still guilty yourself, so you have no right to consider yourself superior to anyone.