Story Matters Podcast
In the Story Matters Podcast, Hosts Ryan and Emily Baker discuss life at the intersection of Theology and Psychology helping listeners to better grasp how their life stories have shaped them.
Story Matters Podcast
56. To Judge or Not To Judge (S5 E4 Paradox 1)
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“Don’t judge” sounds simple until someone gets hurt, a leader falls, or a friend drops a one-sided story in your lap. We wrestle with the real-world paradox Scripture puts in front of us: Jesus warns against judging others, and yet also says to “judge with right judgment” and Paul also talks about discernment inside the church. We need wisdom that can take-on complexity.
We dig into the moment where judgment usually starts: information. Gossip, group chats, news clips, and even documentaries can quietly recruit us into a verdict before we’ve asked a single question. We continue the concept of Season 5 - the practical tool we call a “bind alert” the internal signal that you’re being positioned to take a side. From there we name the next step: choice awareness. Will I seek the other side of the story, set a boundary with the person talking, or pretend I’m neutral while my heart is already forming a sentence?
It is so costly to judge rightly. Shame, belonging, and loyalty structures can make silence feel safer. We explore how our early stories shape whether we lean toward harsh judgment or total avoidance, and how “extending grace” can become enabling when harm has been afflicted. We close with Paul in 2 Timothy 4 as a startling picture of maturity: he names evil of someone by name, warns others, and still gives mercy for people who failed him.
If this conversation helps you think more clearly, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it. Where do you most need wisdom right now: judging too quickly or refusing to judge at all?
Wisdom Starts With The Paradox
SPEAKER_00As we talk about today's paradox, I want to remind all of us that the process alone is the pursuit of wisdom. And that's what we're more interested in than anything. This is not a how to make better decisions podcast. This is a nudge into the complexities of life to help you and I and our listeners gain wisdom in that process. There is a relational situation or symptom that most of us have experienced that we've either given or received quick and simple advice when we're in a complex situation. A conversation I've had where there was simplicity given when there needed to be complexity was around the judge not commandment and judge a tree by its fruit, which both come from Jesus' mouth and feel very contradictory, but yet we want to unpack that today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I totally agree that we need to lean in on not practical ways to do these things, but rather is wisdom having its way with us? Are we working toward wisdom? The absence of wisdom is harmful. We've been saying when we're not aware of our binds, that will have an effect on our body, on our being, our relationships, etc. And then I think this paradox is even more so because it has such wide-ranging effects on the community, your children, relationships, right? And so the paradox is to judge or not to judge. Matthew 7:1 says, Judge not that you be not judged. And then Paul in Romans 14 says, Let us not pass judgment on one another any longer. But in John, Jesus says, Do not judge by appearance, but do judge with right judgment. There is an encouragement to judge. And then Paul in 1 Corinthians 5, 12, is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? So there's a tension here. And what we need to name is that scripture is warning us against judgment while also requiring discernment and judgment. And I want to say at the outset, when we come to these seeming paradoxes in scripture, we're not saying they actually don't work together or that it's always both in. We're not saying that at all. First of all, I want to say there's a lot of room to go and study the actual meaning behind these verses and the other verses in the category. And we need to do that. But we're not going to go into all the exegetical understanding of judgment here just because that's not the scope of this podcast. That being said, in Matthew 7, he does say, lest you be judged. And of course, we know also from the parable of the unmerciful servant, that the idea is when you are a Christian and you've received mercy and grace, that changes you. And you are now able to move toward others without, as he goes on to say in Matthew 7, a plank in your eye. We've talked about that in another episode. And how rarely does anyone ask, well, where did the plank come from? It's indicating to me something of a problem that you've had probably for a long time from childhood wounds. And so what that's what we're really moving toward is, okay, so where's the bind? What's going on? And no, nobody listening to this podcast, nobody that we encounter in this world is either a judger or not a judger. It's not so much do you ever do it or not? It's when do you do it and when do you not? And then how do you do it and how do you not?
SPEAKER_00Right. Because we come up against people that have the leaning towards judge not. Oh, who am I to judge? I just I don't get involved. And yet those same people might make comments about people's appearances or maybe part of the cancel culture. Did you see her bangs?
SPEAKER_01That's funny. Yeah. Is she trying to be Ella Lingley? Yeah, we do this. But what so what? You might argue like, why does this matter? When is refusing to judge actually a failure to love? And when is judging a failure to love?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I love that. That's so good. So when is it more loving to judge because you're advocating for someone or yourself? And when is it more loving to not judge because it's a giving of grace?
SPEAKER_01Yes, and we could take it one step further. The implication of
Judge Not Versus Judge Rightly
SPEAKER_01love is toward the other, right? So assuming there's a person, and I suppose it could also be something like maybe you don't even know them, they're a public figure, but you're making decisions in your mind. What was just said is when is refusing to judge actually a failure to love that person, right? And when is doing the judging a failure to love that person? But the inverse of that is if I'm not loving that person, who am I loving? So then we need to begin to look at where am I refusing to judge out of self-love? In other words, self-protection. And this is where wounds and knowing our story is so important. Where am I protecting me? Or conversely, if when is judging a failure to love the other person, then what we're saying is when is judging my self-protection.
SPEAKER_00So very practically, as you're saying those kind of generalities, I immediately thought about the political realm and the church because those are two hot topics of individuals that will do something within politics or within the church. Public places, yes. That we now are all going to weigh in and be the judge. And so what you're saying is, oh, well, I love that man, so I'm not going to judge him. I'm going to go to that side of the paradox and judge not.
SPEAKER_01Or may I add, I don't necessarily love that man. No one says it like this, but I love myself in such a way as to I would hate to be judged like he's being judged. And because I empathize in some way that I don't want to name right now, I'll just say something like, Well, you've never walked a mile in his shoes.
SPEAKER_00Right, because I could do the same thing. Okay. But then with that love of that person, and really what you're naming is yourself, who are you not loving? And you're not loving the victims, right? Even as we name that complexity of, well, to choose one person, you will be not loving another. Some people that are really committed to not having any enemies, like peacemaker type, are going to then go, well, no, I feel for the victims too. And we find that it's not living in a paradox, it's actually numbing them out to go, yeah, I don't really know. I'm out. I kind of'm gonna back away quietly. I'm so sorry this happened to you guys. I'm no longer gonna sit in the judgment seat when it got a little complex.
SPEAKER_01Yes, possibly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Can we, as a collective group of people that are pursuing healing and growth, sanctification, go, all right, how can we weigh out both sides of this paradox? Really sit in where we're leaning towards based on our stories. I tend towards judge, you tend towards judge, not, or however you want to say it. What if we really push into the complexity and train ourselves up for the wisdom when something does come our way?
SPEAKER_01There is a chance all of us lean one way or the other in general, but more likely than not, what we will find if we do some examining of our own hearts, we lean toward one way or the other to judge or not to judge in circumstances. A very common phrase in counseling is the unexamined parts will wreak havoc on you, right? And as as Christians, of course, we would say that's exactly what the scriptures teach us, where our old man or the flesh is given free reign will lead to a lot of not only outward problems, but inward problems. So thus symptoms of stress or angst or dissociation or numbing, any number of symptoms, right? And so what role did you play in your family? What role do you play in your community? And people often drift to the Enneagram, which is a wonderful tool. I'm a nine, so I'm a peacemaker. In other words, I don't really call people out. Someone else is like, well, I do. I've played that role. I called it, and that was the role I played in my family, right? I was a younger brother. When whyver it happened, I was quick to name and judge the things that were dangerous in our world. Um, often met with incredulity or passivity, or oh, you're making this a big deal, or that didn't really happen that way. That's part of my core story. Others might say, well, I needed to keep the peace, so I had to let a lot go. And at some point, even to enable. So what we're getting at is we're leaning into this paradox to say, okay, what are the underlying structures, even loyalty structures, which we've talked about before, that keep us from engaging the world around
When Judgment Becomes Self-Protection
SPEAKER_01us, the world in which we live, with healthy judgment. Because that's what we're being called to. Jesus doesn't say don't judge, he says, judge as you'll you'll be judged. So the irony is people would say the Bible says not to judge, it's actually the opposite. It says to judge well and as one who has been properly judged and has received the mercy of Christ.
SPEAKER_00Well, thankfully, we still use this language today. So this is not archaic language that Jesus or Paul used. And so we are very familiar with the feeling of I want my day in court. I want to be able to tell my side of the story. And I think a lot of us have had experiences where we have been judged because people have heard something about us, but we've never told our side of the story. Yes. And so I want to name a really important aspect to this paradox, and that is that any of the ways we're going to judge are based on information. And that information is coming to us through talk. Whether that be someone says something to you or you hear it on a news feed. But I think a big aspect to us weighing out to judge or not to judge is going to be how do we handle the information that comes our way? And we have done a whole episode on gossip. Can we call this what it is? But if you are put in a bind because someone has given you information about someone else, and that someone else is not in the room.
SPEAKER_01Can you pause? That is so good. But what's interesting is when you say if you're put in a bind, most I'm not putting a bind. I just I was great. Ironically, many of us, and I would put myself in this category many times, I don't have that bind alert. I don't even have that bind alert.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, let's start there. When you are having coffee with a friend, and that friend tells you some information about someone that you both know, and that someone's not in the room, at least be alerted. This could be in the realm of gossip. And you're hearing something that you are now put in a bind. Do you pursue that other person to hear their side of the story? Or do you take this person in front of you and take it as the full story?
SPEAKER_01I love that bind alert. And I know we finished with it last time. That was I think you coined that. Hey, like, can we even just name before I even can name the particularity of the bind? I'm now growing sensitive. And here's the thing. Okay, because I listener, I get it. Gossip is so pervasive in this culture, and we do it. We all struggle, we all do it. You know, the proverbial, oh, I struggle. In other words, I'm not doing much of this. But if we can just pause and go, it actually not to be selfish, but it actually is it corrodes your soul to receive gossip. It corrodes my soul. In other words, not just because it's not true, or maybe true or not, but rather because if I don't utilize
Information Shapes Every Verdict
SPEAKER_01the capacity of wisdom, which we're talking about through judgment, then I am I'm being corroded. I'm losing the capacity. I'm giving more over to flesh, or I might be more susceptible to early wounds, which can emerge through limbic responses of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. But if I'm learning to go, ooh, bind alert, I just heard something about Stacey and her marriage and that maybe she's doing this or that. Again, we're not saying, oh, immediately name it, put it in perfect words, and then tell the other person.
SPEAKER_00Well, so with our three steps, the next one would be to have a choice awareness. I have a choice now. So I want to do a quick game film on a situation that happened to me. And I know I've heard it in books, I've heard it from friends. This has happened to a lot of people. So many years ago, I befriended a woman, and she was several years younger than me, and so she saw me as her mentor, and we would spend a lot of time together, and she would share with me these stories about another woman in our community that I really didn't know very well, but I would see from time to time. And she convinced me through these stories that this woman was crazy, really into some crazy stuff, but pretended to be one of those really nice church ladies. So, in spending time with this new friend of mine, I became the recipient of stories, and I did not name that I was being put into a bind because I was becoming the judge of this woman in our community that I don't really know, but now I know all these things about. And I didn't even move in towards, okay, I have a choice. Should I go find this woman and ask her side of the story? Should I confront this new friend of mine and say, hey, I don't want to hear these stories because I'm not sure what to do with them? I didn't even name these things. And I also didn't name that I wanted her to like me, and therefore there was a loyalty towards her story. So I was gonna believe her and be her confidant and be her support and went, oh, so empathetic. But now, in hindsight, there was a position of judging that I was in that I didn't think twice about. I did judge this other woman in our community. Well, fast forward many years, that young woman that I had befriended betrayed me and told many people's stories about me and became a woman that I recognized the fruit from her life was very toxic, very dishonest. There was a lot revealed over time, and this has been a decade. I've realized I need to go back and think through that woman in our community that I judged. I did not hear her side of the story. And without even naming that I was in a bind, I just became the judge and she was crazy.
SPEAKER_01That's very poignant for this topic because when you said that last part, it made me think of movies where you've been led one way, like sixth sense or something, and then at the very end, and then they go back and they show you what you missed. That's a lot of what you're saying is I missed the other side. I didn't have all the information. I liked also how you said you judge because I'm married to you and I've been with you. Clearly, you didn't, I never experienced you to literally go judge this person. But what you're admitting, I believe, is by not having the alert, the bind alert, by not engaging the choice, in effect, you did join in. And so there is no neutral party in gossip, right? I'm either joining in or I'm gonna go do some work. And one of the things I think we want to add to this conversation that's so important is there's probably better ways to say it, but something of mutuality or connectedness to the information and to the people. I think so often, like in that scenario, it was like, well, that's a she versus other woman thing, or I've heard a story about Mike
A Friendship That Trained Misjudgment
SPEAKER_01and Fred are in a conflict and I've heard about it, but I'm not going to enter it because I'm not in that. Now, caveat, there is a lot of wisdom about not entering conflicts there that we could go into in other episodes. But what's being said here is I'm actually in that community. But then something's on TV or in the news or whatever, and oh, I'm all about casting judgment there. Again, we do need to make judgment calls about national information, national news, local news. But my point is how easy it is to act like that's really a big deal to me. That's something that's happening in my midst that could be affecting my pastor, fellow parishioners, fellow workers, business partners, good friends, children's parents. I'm being made privy to this now. What do I do? I have a responsibility. I'm at a choice point. I'm at a bind alert and I'm at a choice point. Now, what other choices we can get into, but at least can we get there first?
SPEAKER_00Well, what you're saying with that comparison is that one thing of watching the news and having a very strong opinion that doesn't take complexity. We're just taking what we hear and making a quick judgment. So we're back to this idea that if you give quick, simple advice, yeah, put her in prison for life. Okay, okay. I think we actually pull away from the ones that are coming at us in our community because they are complex and we don't want to move into complexity. Here's the thing that has to be named we are put into binds, whether we like it or not, and we don't want to, so we can't just get out of the bind. If I hear information and I see a conflict and I know these two people are fighting and I love both of them, you're in it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So it's like, sorry, you live in a broken world.
SPEAKER_01No, that's okay, you're in it.
SPEAKER_00Well, you made a good point that we don't always have to get into things that we shouldn't get into. There's a wisdom piece there that maybe we should have talked about, but nonetheless, if I'm given one side of a story, I'm now in a bind. Do I go get the other side of the story? Do I pretend like I never heard it? Some people act like they're so strong that they can have two people that they love that hate each other, but they can spend time with both people and it doesn't bother them. And I don't think that's strength. I'm just not sure it is. Because first of all, Jesus says if you know someone has a problem with someone else, take that person and create reconciliation. Just being each of their confidants is not reconciling, it's actually being each person's savior, which is a whole dysfunction of itself.
SPEAKER_01So Yeah, there's a lot of nuance in a lot of these ideas.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I want to come back to when you were giving this example from your life. I think on several occasions you refer to this person as a friend, a new friend, someone who maybe even in a way selected you to mentor them, kind of thing. And so I guess the question then, Emily, is what would having a bind alert cost you? Said a different way, and not necessarily just about you and the situation, but why are we ignoring these alerts? So they're there. We kind of get a sense, but what would it have cost you or what were you afraid of to fully move what you would now say in this episode toward, oh, this is I'm in a bind hearing this. And furthermore, I have to make a decision of some kind. And I might possibly have to either tell this person to stop gossiping to me. What would you say you might have been afraid of?
SPEAKER_00It's hard to know if I am using this feeling that's coming up from me based on what I know now, or if I really did feel it then. But she was a dynamic person in that there's a strong personality and some strong opinions, and I wanted to stay in her good graces.
SPEAKER_01That's perfect. Because this is our system stuff. Like the popular person, man or woman, has at their disposal a whole bunch of yes people, right? And they make up our community, it seems. And so if we if we stick out a little bit and we don't fit into the system, which says, hey, you simply receive this information, then we may be, we may be crushed, we may be whispered about, we may be next. We're getting a front row seat to what it looks like, which you said in this example.
The Social Cost Of Naming Reality
SPEAKER_01And all of that stuff's happening, not even at the conscious level, but it's really playing into this. We say it a lot here, but limbic or lifetime formation of the underneath the conscious stuff that's designed is to keep us safe and that tries to stay mostly unexamined.
SPEAKER_00Well, and it may just be the universal part of the human brain that wants to stay safe and stay included in a community.
SPEAKER_01That's what a shame response. I didn't talk about shame. That same I could be cast out of the or uh out of the situation, whether actually or just people look at me different now, or I wasn't invited all of a sudden that office where Jim spoke up about how D'Angelo is leaving out women because he left out Pam. The Will Farrell character is D'Angelo. Hey, I notice you're only having men come into this meeting and to this kind of inner circle. And then the next time D'Angelo invites the inner circle, Jim's name's conveniently left out of the list.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's super costly to name.
SPEAKER_01And it's funny by the way, he does go in. He kind of sneaks in, sits down, and then D'Angelo's like, What are you doing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Get out.
SPEAKER_00I think we need to pay attention as we look at both sides of judge or judge not and look at our lifetime of stories and which of those two has kept us more safe. I think the majority of people I come in contact with try their best to live in the mentality that I don't judge. And that keeps me safe because who really wants to be that judge? But there are some people that in their story, they did have to judge right from wrong in a crazy making world that they were living in in order to stay with their head above water.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I would say more often than not, a person in a crazy making world had to discern safe from unsafe in a world of, say, gaslight, passive aggressive, little tea, and pervasive traumas. Thus, in a way, they maybe, into what you just mentioned, maybe they're better at bringing good judgment to situations, but they may be more prone to, look, I know how to stay safe and I'm gonna stay safe. I think of just this Jerry McGuire scene. He's put the memo in everyone's box, and then they all give him a great job, they loved it, and then he gets fired. That's deeply ingrained in us. If I'm called to actually speak in with healthy judgment into this situation, we cannot escape the tension that I am called to discern good from evil, and yet I'm warned against condemning others. I don't fully know another person's heart. My own motives and perceptions are imperfect. And yet sometimes I must act without certainty, and I may be stepping into harm's way myself. And again, most of this is talking about when we do judge, but again, it applies to wrong judgment as well. The irony of the unmerciful servant, which is similar to what Jesus is saying in Matthew 7 of judge not lest you be judged. It's if you're not going to show the mercy that you've been given, then you'll be judged. The irony is that's a judgment. Like when you read the parable of the unmerciful servant, you feel frustrated that he does what he did. You see what I'm saying? You see him get this forgiveness that's overwhelming of debt. And then you watch him go up to people who owe him a lot less and even say, put that person in jail until they can pay me. And as the reader, if you're reading it correctly, you're angry. You feel justice, right? That's healthy. So right judgment is healthy, but it's costly. And then wrong judgment is usually just vindictive. We've talked about it before when Nathan approaches David and gives him this kind of made-up scenario about a man who stole a sheep
Mercy That Turns Into Enabling
SPEAKER_01from his neighbor, and it was the neighbor's only sheep, it's his prized sheep. And David being a shepherd, so his story is being activated, he loses all sensibility and just says, That man must die. Um, what's going on? Where is my story being activated? Thus, what you've said the bind alert. But now what we're kind of naming is okay, it's not just I'm alerted to a bind, I'm intensifying it. I'm trying to find out why this situation or this type of thing either elicit a large desire for judgment or make me want to just put my hands up and say, I'm out. Who am I? Who am I? I'm gonna just step over here. And by the way, one of the popular ways that's done, and you brought this to my attention as you You might want to say some words about it is the Bible just says we should extend grace. And in other words, we end up overlooking harms, say, of a pastor or a leader, and then that becomes enabling.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. That's the big talk, at least in my algorithms right now on Instagram, is the Netflix series, The Death of a Pastor's Wife. The big question is are we collectively shrugging off sin and calling it grace? Are we collectively saying it's a con it's a complex situation? So who am I to judge? And we may need to be aware, going back to what I was saying about all of our information comes to us by talk. It's not just gossip, it's documentaries. Who has not watched a documentary that you think, oh, for sure this is the guilty party? And then they begin to reveal the other side and it's becomes obvious it's not what you thought. And you're like, oh, if I had stopped this halfway through, I would have for sure thought he was the guilty one. And who also hasn't watched a documentary thinking, well, is this really fair for me to judge? I'm only hearing the producer's version. There may be a lot more information out there. And so I just think we have to decide is this a place in which I am called to judge? Yeah. Is this my community? Watching the death of a pastor's wife, is this good for us to do the Hebrews 4 thing of honing our skills of knowing evil and good and knowing how to discern? Is this good practice? Or is this actually distracting me? And I'm getting super involved in that, where my marriage or my friendship or my work relationship is having a conflict that I need to address, but that's too complex. I don't want to. So I'll stay over here in this kind of theoretical way.
SPEAKER_01I think that's a really good example. As we've watched it, I've shared with you some frustrations. While you're being presented with a story, maybe from an interview, they'll cut to footage and then you'll hear the pastor from a sermon, and it's jaw dropping. It's like, oh my gosh, of course he did it. And the the bind there is, well, it is a bad thing that was said in the pulpit. They found a good clip. But that doesn't mean that implicates him in this crime much later. That's one issue. So again, and in everyday life of our real lives, it would be the one side of gossip. Netflix has chosen a side and they're convincing us of that side. But maybe more importantly, is it's an absurd case. In fact, it plays into our pride. We watch that and go, You idiots, how could you all not see this? Or how could you be missing this? And yet the truth is we're not doing that same examination of our lives. Where am I in my life missing the bind? Where in my life am I blinding myself, allowing myself willfully to miss places where I'm supposed to bring judgment or places where I'm diving in with too much or false judgment?
SPEAKER_00Maybe what we're saying watching a Netflix series does not activate my loyalty structure of my safety in my community.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00Now, if a sin pattern that I'm aware of in my life is happening and it's being portrayed on a Netflix documentary,
When Your Story Hijacks Justice
SPEAKER_00then I may have a lot more grace. Like, who am I to judge? I think you had told me one time you were on a jury and you kept thinking, well, I could have done the same thing. And that really shaped how you saw the case. That's not necessarily truth.
SPEAKER_01Without any explanation, that just sounds horrible. It was a mass murder. And I was like, gosh, I've I'm a Calvinist and I know my own heart is capable.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Ryan, why don't you just share it?
SPEAKER_01I was like 20, but I just found myself like coming back to I could have done that. As I was thinking about whether to find this person guilty or not guilty, he was gonna have to pay a settlement or I just for some reason that just became a temptation of mine and not like what is right, true, and good, even if I'm implicated as well. But rather, man, I could it seem as if I'm the guy. If it's something I could do, then it's okay. But if it's something I would never do, then it's evil.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's actually a whole category we could go into as to when you find yourself not wanting to judge, it's possibly because you're guilty of the same thing. Or when you're really quick to judge, it may be something that you have left unattended in your own life and you think I would never do that.
SPEAKER_01Or again, going back to your first example, I don't want to judge because I'm guilty of the same thing. I have a secret and I don't want people to come after me with my stuff. So I'm not gonna become someone that goes after that person when it's not hurting me.
SPEAKER_00I won't judge that people group because I don't want my people group judged. Yes. Yeah. So back to what I was saying, you're precisely showing that when we get involved in these community-wide ruptures, so to speak, and we're trying to all figure out what should be done, what's the judgment, what's the repair, what's the process of rightness here. We aren't spending that kind of effort in our own lives, in my opinion, because it's so costly to us possibly confronting a friend or confronting our own patterns of showing up to this world, it's going to disrupt. And yet, our theme of this series is pushing towards the complexity of our binds and having that alert and even being aware of that is movement towards growth and healing and light. We cannot live flourishing lives in the dark. Now, is there a cost to turning on the lights and being alerted to these binds? Absolutely. There's a cost, but ultimately there's a freedom. That's right.
SPEAKER_01So, just to kind of summarize some things, you know, where this can play out in our daily lives, do I confront this pattern or overlook it? What does it cost? What would be my motives? Why am I overly judgmental or am I overly dismissive? Or do I name what looks destructive and risk the relationship? Or do I just go along with it and kind of risk me in my own myself?
SPEAKER_00Or quietly back away and quickly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Or church community, do I speak when everyone else seems comfortable? That's a big one. Like when we've had conflicts in churches we've been in, and then of course we hear about them all the time with clients. But what you find is factions even can form and absurd statements can be made. Well, I don't think he ever could have done that because I've known him his whole life. And then another category is if you're an adult child, your parents are still living, or just other family members that you're in community with. When do you go along with whatever the system is doing that's maybe hard or even harmful? Or when do you speak up and encourage, even somewhat demand it being addressed? So when is speaking love or when is it control? Those are challenges. These are all binds that have to do with judgment or withholding judgment. Can I come to the conclusion that someone isn't trustworthy right now for our relationship without saying to myself or them or anyone else, that person is ultimately not a trustworthy person? Like when can I make a decision that's the boundary for me? That's a type of judgment, right? But without in my mind castigating
Boundaries Without Sentencing People
SPEAKER_01that person as someone who is all bad or all untrustworthy. And then, of course, gossiping or that would be almost like a sentencing.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So I have judged in my own life that you're not safe, but I'm going to now sentence you to life in prison by telling everyone in the community to exile you.
SPEAKER_01Which is also because that way I'm insured that I'm not the one put to shame, right? I'm going to do an end around and I'm going to tell everyone about you, and then that'll protect me. And so what here's our invitation. The very core of the Beatitudes is blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And that that can sound very lovely and very scary. And that's what we're talking about. What we're trying to encourage is by examining a paradox like this one, we can work backwards toward places where we don't even realize we're in binds and we're in them all the time. That's one way to do it. Of course, the other direction is often we'll begin with the bind because there's a symptom, as we've said in earlier episodes, and we think there's no choice. And so we go down that pathway. And often if we can have this humility to open up and risk uncertainty of not knowing what we're supposed to do, we can then land at, oh, there is a paradox here. This is going to take wisdom. But I think with this episode, in particular, because we're starting with one that's so important and I think collectively misunderstood because of how risky it is, we would recommend starting with the paradox, trying to understand yourself. When am I judging and when am I avoiding? And begin to pay attention to those scenarios, those patterns. And then what we would always encourage would be as you begin to see a pattern, a role you played, what's comfortable for you, then you can go earlier into your life. Where did that protect you? Where was that needed to stay safe? And we can name that and name, okay, I needed to be like that when I was 12. I didn't need to be like that when I was 25.
Paul Holds Judgment And Mercy Together
SPEAKER_00Okay, I found this particular paradox in 2 Timothy that Paul says that I would love to say, and you interact with it, and we'll close out judge and judge not. Okay, so in 2 Timothy 4, 14 through 16, this is how Paul is ending his letter to Timothy. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. At my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them. So I heard, this guy did me wrong, he's gonna be judged, watch out for him. So now I'm indicting him, and then he ends with, and everyone that didn't help me, may the Lord not hold it against them. May there be mercy. So I hear a judging and I hear a don't judge. But I want to hear what you think, Ryan.
SPEAKER_01Well, one thing I love is the verse right before it is when you come, bring the cloak that I left and also the books, and above all, the parchments. I want to write, I'm cold, I have these needs. And then he goes in. And by the way, Alexander the Coppersmith did me great harm. I love what he says in verse 17, but the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it, which by the way, most of the Christians we know are Gentiles, right? So obviously there are Jews that have become Christian, but we are the recipient of his faith. And I would just say that what he seems to be saying there is one, there is evil. In fact, even to do what he's naming about Alexander, apparently, as a copper smith, right, you get a lot of money from making idols. And so when Paul begins to teach that, oh, let me tell you who God is, it's Jesus. I don't need idols anymore. And then Alexander gets irritated. You've like stirred the mafia, right? They're they have their system. And I think he's saying, No one came to my defense is a big deal, right? That's a big deal to him. And yet he had the Lord. It's interesting he does name names, but what he is saying is uncategorically, Alexander did evil and did me great harm. And he's putting himself out there, but he's also warning people from this personally, be on alert, right? But then he's also calling out unnamed people who did not come to his defense. Which again, that I would put those people in a category of I heard the information, um, but I didn't have a bind alert. And what was the bind? Alexander, if I come to your defense, what about my business? What about my livelihood? Maybe I'll be physically harmed. So not naming those binds, not getting into the place of complexity, Paul's saying, I was left alone. Listen, guys, every one of us that's listening to this right now has left somebody alone. We've left a pastor alone, a parisher, a friend, someone who's being harmed by a spouse. There's any number of people where when we could have leaned in and provided a defense, a care, joined forces, judgment is seeing it correctly and moving toward it. Um, we chose the other road. We went the way of the two that leave the person to bleed out until the Samaritan arrives. Because our lives are busy, we have our needs in place, etc. And the presumption we have, if you are a Christian, is we don't want to be that. But we have to name that we are, and we have to name that we do these things, and we have to do some work around it. Again, it's not going to be as obvious as a Netflix special, usually. It's going to be, oh, we we knew, but we didn't know, kind of thing. And yet, Paul prays for mercy for those people. He sees it as weakness and he prays for them. And so this is not a guilt trip. This is a wake-up call to all of us to go, where is my spirit? Where is the spirit, Holy Spirit, where is my body alerting me to things I'm actively either ignoring or where am I jumping on things with kind of my whole judgment being that I should probably not be engaged in? I need to be more nuanced, more aware. And where are these things stemming from? And how might I seek healing in those early wounds through exposure and grief so that I'm not wreaking havoc in my community? We have these places where we will begin to be more alerted to our binds if we do the work apart from the actual moment. And then later, when they come up, we'll begin to notice them and have that, and then we'll move to that
Practice Wisdom Before The Moment
SPEAKER_01choice awareness. Oh, I'm actually in a place where I have a choice, like Paul experiences, and then of course moving to the paradox, meaning we are seeing clearly two sides of the situation. And Paul holds the paradox beautifully. He names what is evil, which is risky, and yet the people who have left him and caused him harm, he could easily have done what many of us would want to do is judge those people, talk about those people, and he offers them mercy.