Judging Others: What Romans Says and What to Do Instead

From the sermon preached on April 12, 2026

The Bible's answer to judging others is not "do better"; it's something older and more uncomfortable than that. Romans 2:1 says that when you pass judgment on someone else, you condemn yourself, because the one doing the judging is doing the very same things. That is not a comfortable verse. It is also one of the most freeing ones in the New Testament, if you let it land all the way.

The Apostle Paul wrote the letter to the Romans into a church that was fracturing. Jewish believers who had been expelled from Rome under Emperor Tiberius around AD 19 had recently been allowed back, and the tension with Gentile believers who had carried on without them was real and raw. Paul did not write around it. He opened with a sweeping description of human sin in Romans 1 (the kind of list that makes a reader feel like the noose is tightening), and then, instead of calling people to judge one another, he turned the whole thing around. Chapter 2 begins: "Therefore, you have no excuse, oh man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because you, the judge, practice the very same things."

The Roman judicial system was a point of cultural pride. Unlike the Greek system, where any citizen could serve as judge, Roman judges required formal legal training and official appointment. They saw themselves as professionals. Paul's word to the people of God was pointed: if you are setting yourself up as judge over another person, you are out of your depth. Not because the emperor is the final authority, but because God is. The Greek word for "judge" in this passage carries meanings that range from "condemn" to "prefer" to "esteem as worthy." That last one is worth sitting with. Sometimes the judgment is not even about sin; it is simply about whether someone measures up to what you think a man, a woman, or a Christian is supposed to look like.

The honest step here is not a task. It is a question to sit with this week: Who have I been measuring? Not out loud, not cruelly (just quietly, in the way a person can do without saying a word).

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Romans 2 continues with a question that is easy to skip past: "Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" The word "presume" is doing real work there. To presume on God's patience is to keep doing the thing while assuming the grace will hold, without ever turning back toward him. And Paul's point is that God's patience is not indifference. It is mercy on a timeline. The image he uses is sobering: an unrepentant heart is storing up wrath for itself on the day of judgment, the way a storm system builds before it breaks.

That is not a verse designed to terrify. It is a verse designed to interrupt. Because the person who is busy cataloguing everyone else's failures (the neighbor's yard, the coworker's choices, the family member's politics, the stranger's appearance) is the person who has stopped looking inward. And 1 Corinthians 11:31 offers the other side of this: "If we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment." Self-examination, honest and specific, is the alternative Paul is pointing toward. Not self-flagellation. Not endless guilt. The specific, practical act of holding your own life up against the word of God, seeing where you fall short, and receiving the forgiveness that is already available through Jesus Christ.

That is what Paul means when he says God's kindness leads to repentance. The kindness is not a pass. It is a hand extended toward you, calling you home from wherever you have wandered.

Take one step toward that honesty this week (even if it is just five minutes alone before God, asking him to show you what you have been unwilling to look at).

Romans 14 picks the thread back up near the end of the letter, after Paul has covered the whole sweep of the gospel. He writes: "As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions." The context is the debate over meat sacrificed to pagan idols (an issue that sounds distant but maps directly onto the places where Christians judge one another today): farming practices, clothing, vehicle age, school choices, political leanings, sobriety, and a hundred other things that carry the weight of identity in a small community. Paul's word is plain: let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains judge the one who eats. God has welcomed him.

But Paul does not stop at "don't judge." He points toward something harder and better. Matthew 7:1–5 (the "log and speck" passage) is often quoted as a reason to leave everything alone. The logic goes: you have your own problems, so mind your business. That is not what Jesus said. The verse ends with "first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." The sequence is everything. Examine yourself. Repent. Then go after the other person; not as a judge, but as someone who knows what it is to need rescue.

Galatians 6:1 names the posture: "Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness." Restoration. Not condemnation. The community's role, when someone is sinking, is not to stand on the bank and render a verdict. It is to go in after them.

The practical distinction is this: judging concerns how someone has offended you. Rescue concerns how they have drifted from God. Judging demands they get right with you. Rescue wants them back with him. The difference between the two is not always visible from the outside, but it is always felt by the person on the receiving end.

This week, if there is someone in your life who is struggling (not offending you, but struggling) consider what it would look like to reach toward them instead of away.

In Watseka, Ashkum, Gilman, Milford, Cissna Park, and the communities scattered across Iroquois County, most people already know what it feels like to be sized up (by the acreage you farm, the truck you drive, whether your kids turned out the way people expected). The measuring happens quietly here, without announcement. And the people who have been on the receiving end of it are often the last ones to walk through a church door, because they assume more measuring is waiting for them inside. Trinity Church is not perfect at this (no congregation is) but it is a group of people being asked by the same scripture to stop, examine themselves first, and then reach toward others with open hands. If you have been hurt by judgment and you are curious whether there is something different on the other side of it, you are welcome to find out.

Judging brings judgment. That is the uncomfortable word from Romans 2, and it is not negotiable. But the same chapter that says that also says God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance, which means the door is not closed. It means the invitation is still standing. Jesus did not come to render a verdict on broken people. He came on a rescue mission, and the people he called to follow him are supposed to be part of that same mission, not the people standing at the door deciding who gets in.

If you are ready to take a next step, we would love to welcome you at Trinity Church — at our Ashkum, Goodland, or Watseka Campus. Wherever you choose to visit, you are welcome just as you are, with no pressure and no expectation that you have it all together. Plan a visit at the button below.

And if you are not quite ready for that, you can still connect here and let us know how we can pray for you. That is the whole ask.