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God places us in different leadership positions – parents over children, teachers, pastors, etc. We know that these are not positions for making us feel important, but where God entrusts us with responsibilities to take care of those He has given to us. Sometimes this responsibility requires warning them about danger or correcting them when they go wrong. If we don't judge the situations as they come by and decide to take appropriate action, people will not get the help they need. If our children are getting mixed with friends who can harm them, is it not our responsibility to tell them why those friends are bad and why they should stay away?

But many times, especially leaders in churches, take the position, they should 'not judge'. They will say, "We can't judge. Who are we to judge?" In that sense, who are we to judge? We have given up our right to judge other people when we received grace, unmerited favour, from God. God has put aside His right to judge us and shown us mercy, and now we cannot judge anybody in the sense that we cannot pass judgment on them (Mt.7:1,2). We have no right to send them to condemnation, we can't despise them, we aren't superior, we can't cast them out.

But we ought to have judgments as those who are leaders over others! We have to judge (form opinions) according to righteous judgments, Jesus said (Jn.7:24). If we are not willing to do that, we are failing the people in our care. Of course on a personal level, we have no right to judge anybody. But when we say, "We cannot judge, who are we to judge," we are mixing up our personal position with our leadership responsibilities. We have no right to judge as individuals but we need to make judgments and guide those we care for. Here we are not working on a personal level. We are working officially in that responsible position and people who are under our care depend on us to make the decision and guide them.

When a godly man stands up to preach, he is aware of his past sins, the corruption of his sinful nature, and he may be also aware that some of his hearers also know about them! But it is still his responsibility to pass on what he has heard from God and the lessons he has learnt from his own foolish experiences to tell the people so that they can be spared from making mistakes. Think of a father who has been delivered from drinking. Should he think he has no right to tell his children to avoid drinking, or that he has all the more responsibility to warn them?

Paul told the young Timothy, "Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning" (1Ti.5:19,20). Can we apply this, for example, to leaders who have been exposed publicly, and then warn people in our care to take some lessons from that? Or should we say, "Let us not judge!"? Bad examples are there to learn from (1Co.10:6-10).

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