D. C. wrote in and asked a few years back:

Liberals tend use the concept of forgiveness and non-judgment to cow conservative critics. Their favorite verse (most likely the only one they know) is Jesus' injunction to "judge not lest thou be judged" from Matthew. What do the scriptures say, particularly in the light of our President [Bill Clinton]'s misbehavior?

Heh heh...yep, this is a good one. And the question is more poignant than we may realize.

For perspective, let's quote the verse in question. It's Matthew 7:1 --

Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

Pretty simple and to the point - but not at all to be taken by itself! While folks like to spit out 7:1, chances are they don't know much about what follows it. Let's go to verses 2-5:

For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

A couple of things to notice here:

• The further exposition clearly indicates that what is condemned here is not judging per se, but judging hypocritically.
• It also clearly indicates that once you take the "plank" out of your own eye, you will see clearly (the Greek here is diablepo, meaning according to Strong's, to look through, i.e. recover full vision) to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Thus one is quite free to judge - if one is not a hypocrite!

Now of course, there is a lot more that could be said about how one should go about the process of "judging", and we can discuss in this particular case the relevance to the sins of a national leader, and so on. But the bottom line is that this verse is not an outright forbidding of judging at all. In fact, it's right in line with John 7:24, "Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment." (I'll bet you'll never hear that verse quoted, eh!)