Thursday, September 09, 2010

Does discernment have to lead to condemnation?

Skye Jethani has an interesting article on Out of Ur. In Judge Not he discusses two different uses of the word judge in the Bible: to discern and to condemn. When Jesus says, "judge not or you will be judged," he certainly did not mean we should not use discernment. We are constantly told to be discerning in the Scriptures. The problem is, when we discern that something is evil or wrong, we often move straight to the judgment of condemnation. Does condemnation have to follow the discernment? What is an appropriate Christian response to discerning something is less than perfect?