37 “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others - or it will all come back against you. Forgive others and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

39-40 Then Jesus gave the following illustration: “Can one blind person lead another? Won’t they both fall into a ditch? Students are not greater than their teacher. But the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher. 41-42 And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying, ‘Friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”

43-45 “A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thorn bushes, and grapes are not picked from bramble bushes. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.” Luke 6:37-45 From the New Living Translation (Link to English Standard Version)

I’d suggest that the favourite verse of the Bible people who don't like Christians love to quote is vs 37. Why do you think that is?

It's probably because they can throw it in the face of Christians who may be challenging some of the things they do. They say we shouldn't be 'judging' them. What they don't realize is that there's a difference between 'judging' and 'condemning' someone – and lovingly warning someone of danger they are in. Notice how in vs 43-45 Jesus speaks of how we evaluate things in life. If we didn't distinguish safe mushrooms from poisonous ones the result could be deadly. Jesus points out that the actions that flow from our lives show whether our hearts are good or evil. So what do you think Jesus was getting at when he spoke these words? Does that mean we must never say if someone's lifestyle is right or wrong?

My own thoughts are that Jesus is warning against self-righteousness – that attitude when people regard themselves as better than others and continually criticize those who differ from them. What does Jesus say will happen if we are such people? (vs 37)

We run the risk of being treated in the same way. People will condemn us for our judgmental attitude. But notice that the opposite is also true. (vs 38) If we are a giving people (not just money, but things like kindness and forgiveness) people usually respond in the same way towards us. Jesus' words imply that God Himself will shower blessing on our lives. Vs 39-40 show that self-righteous people are no use to anyone. They think they are guides to others when they themselves should be learning still! In vs 41-42 he uses an extreme picture to show how silly it is for people to pick out faults in the lives of others when their own life is full of glaring inconsistencies.

One of the things this attitude leads to is discrimination. It happens between social classes as well as racial groups. Listen to how James 2:2-4 puts it. Speaking to Christians he wrote: “If a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, 'Sit here in a good place', while you say to the poor man, 'Stand over there', or, 'Sit down at my feet', have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

The words of Jesus should make us think about what our attitude towards others shows about our own heart. Are we quick to see their blemishes and faults and condemn them, yet short sighted to our own need of God's mercy and forgiveness? Psalm 51:10 is a prayer worth praying “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”