Luke 6:37-38
Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.
We live in an age overrun with relativism. To hear some people tell it, you would almost get the impression that the only thing Jesus ever said and the only verse ever recorded in the entire Bible was Luke 6:37. In fact, you can almost get the impression that only the first two words of that verse are the only thing Jesus ever said. And so, Christians are routinely assailed as “judgmental” simply because they point out the rest of this passage. For, of course, when Jesus said “judge not” he did not do so in the context of a relativistic universe in which your truth-is-your-truth-and-my-truth-is-mine-and-nobody-has-any-right-to-judge-blah-blah-blah. Rather, he very clearly spoke with the awareness that God has every right to judge–and will. It is a mark of our confusion in the present age that we regard this fact of God’s judgement with both fear and outrage. If we had our wits about us we would realize that the truth of God and his merciful judgment forms the basis of our mercy to one another. Apart from it, we will always have what we have seen so much of in this century already: the raw conflict between powers who can have nothing in common since “my truth is mine (not yours) and your truth is yours (not mine).” So, let us all submit to the common judgment of God that we may all grant mercy to one another and receive his mercy for us all.
