Every Sunday, I post a passage of Scripture without commentary. Although I often use Scripture during the week as foundational to my reasoning, I like to let it speak for itself once a week. I trust the Lord will use it to minister to someone; His Word will do that.

Yesterday, though, the passage I quoted was from Matthew 7, part of the Sermon on the Mount, and it centered on judging others. While it speaks quite clearly to me, some may misunderstand its intent simply because it is so often taken out of context. “The Bible says don’t judge” is what we hear, yet that is a misreading of the passage. It pulls out one statement without connecting it to the rest of the verses. I’ll come back to the specifics.

The fact is, we judge all the time. And we should. Jesus said we would know who is genuine and who is not by inspecting the fruit of their lives. In the book of Hebrews, Christians are admonished,

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

Discernment is essential for Christians; without it, we fall into various traps. We can be led astray, which is why the book of James says,

My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

Common sense: there is truth; one can stray from it; a person who strays from the truth is a sinner and will lose his eternal soul; if anyone points out a man’s sins, he can bring him back to the truth and out of danger of eternal damnation. There’s a whole lot of judging going on in that scenario, and it’s for the good of the man who has gone into error.

That brings us back to Matthew 7. Verse 1 begins with the warning not to judge because we may be judged for doing so. But in what circumstance? The verses that follow clearly provide the framework: if we are doing the same sort of thing for which we are judging another person, we will be held accountable as a hypocrite. The instruction is plain: you cannot take the speck out of someone else’s eye if you have a log in your own eye. First deal with the problem in your own life, but notice what follows: “and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

So we are commanded to point out the “speck” once we have dealt with our “log.” This passage is not telling us to ignore the actions, attitudes, and motives of others; it just wants us to do so with a clear conscience.

Christians are to be judgmental. That’s jarring to modern ears saturated with the mantras of self-esteem and non-judgmentalism. Yet it is true. Only by maturely discerning the sins of individuals and our society at large can we begin to take the path to redemption—and redemption is the ultimate goal, is it not?

So check your heart first. Make sure you are not being hypocritical when attacking sin in others. But sin must be highlighted for the good of those who need personal redemption and for the good of a society that is teetering on the brink of total devastation. Christians are to be the salt and light in our world by exposing the darkness and showing the way out of spiritual blindness.

Nothing fancy today . . . or long. I just want to make a few statements to help provide some understanding for why I am so dedicated to speaking out about righteousness in government and culture. I don’t do so from some position of presumed authority or because I think I’m the fount of all wisdom. In fact, it’s precisely due to the failures in my own life over my 61+ years that I feel called to write and teach.

When I was 25, I knew everything. I wouldn’t have said so at the time—who would be that foolishly bold?—but as I look back now, I see that I thought I had captured most of the truth about God and life. That confidence was shaken, though, when I went through a time of estrangement from the Lord. I walked away from the faith and tried hard to find another way. God’s grace, however, prevailed as He allowed me to follow a path that led to a dead end.

At the end of that path, I had nowhere to turn but back to Him, and for that I’m eternally grateful. He gave me a second chance. He showed me the devastation of sin in one’s life, the cleansing nature of repentance and faith in His atonement, and hope for a new start—a new path. I’ve traveled this new path with Him now for about 25 years. It has not all been easy. I’ve had to live with some consequences from that period when I wandered, and the path has contained some rather large potholes, some of which I navigated successfully, others into which I fell. Yet even in times of near-despair, He has shown me His faithfulness.

I am more attuned to some things now. Sin is uglier than ever to me. A culture awash in sin makes me grieve. The politics of hypocrisy and self-centeredness brings pain to my heart, even as I know it does to God’s heart. Falsehood, whether in theology or political philosophy, brings the response of wanting to correct all such falsehood with declarations of truth. As a teacher, which is God’s calling on my life, I have a natural tendency to discern error and counter it with Biblical principles.

Yet I am also more attuned to God’s mercy. He showed mercy to me when I deserved judgment. Even as I point out error and talk of God’s potential judgments, I must leave room for His mercy, particularly toward those in the culture and government who are deceived and are deceiving others. God’s judgment may fall, but I will continue to pray that it be forestalled and that spiritual renewal may increase.

We are to judge. That is Biblical. We are to evaluate men’s hearts and actions. We need to do so, though, only when we have first taken the beam out of our own eye.

A couple of sentences from a small devotional book that I’m reading stand out to me today. The first deals with sin:

It is no secret that when a man sins he ever so rarely does anything unique or original or new or different. Sin is monotonously the same, generation after generation.

My sins were not unique. God’s forgiveness is not unique. But it was uniquely applied to my life. It gave me a new life.

The devotional also noted this:

There is a perpetual power of renewal in the Christian religion. It is forever producing prophets and saints who keep calling it back to the heart of its message.

I have been the recipient of a renewal. God continually calls me back to the heart of His message. My goal is to spread that message in any way I can. This is why I write.

Campaigns have always been quite adept at creating false images of opponents. As a student of American history, I know this is not a new phenomenon. Our history is replete with the skewering of political foes, usually with a fair amount of lies thrown in. But never in our history have we had such access to information to cull out that which is false. You would think that would make politicians more cautious, but in the case of President Obama and his team, all caution seems to have been swept away during this campaign season.

Even though every new ad that appears can be checked against the record, Obama’s people have continued to run roughshod over the truth. They have tried many different tacks. One has been to accuse Republicans of wanting to suppress the minority vote by requiring photo ID’s to prove that voters are what they say they are—legitimate voters. Unfair, the Obama campaign declares, in the face of the following facts:

How can they make a valid claim of purposeful disfranchisement of voters when ID’s are required for all of the above? Yet has the media called them out on it?

They’ve also taken to attacking Romney personally, trying to make him into a felon because his name was still on the roster of Bain Capital three years after he said he had left the company. Yet even Democrats supporting the president have pointed out it was part of the reporting requirements and he was not actively making any decisions for the company during that time. But what else can you expect from Chicago politicians?

If you’re interested in finding some genuine felons, might I suggest you start in Chicago?

In connection with Bain, Romney is accused of being an outsourcing king, thereby losing jobs for Americans. Never mind all the jobs saved by Bain during his tenure, and the companies that were strengthened; focus instead on some of the investments that didn’t work out. One might excuse this attack as the result of Obama never having had any experience with free enterprise, but I don’t think that excuse will fly. As Bill O’Reilly pointed out in his program the other night, the Obama administration is buddy-buddy with General Electric, the majority of whose employees now work overseas. One Romney ad has dubbed the president as the Outsourcer-in-Chief. Therefore, this Obama attack is pure hypocrisy.

We’ve also seen a multitude of ads demeaning Romney as a filthy rich guy who doesn’t understand common people. Some of this is meant to distract from Obama’s problems:

While Romney certainly is rich, he can’t measure up to some of Obama’s key supporters, such as Oprah Winfrey, whose net worth is far greater than Romney’s. When do you think the president’s campaign team is going to take her to task for possessing so much wealth? Right.

In all this, Obama bemoans the lack of civility in politics, talking about how disappointed he is that the political atmosphere remains so poisoned:

That might be the rankest hypocrisy of all, coming from the Poisoner-in-Chief. I’m not sure truth has ever been more twisted than what we are now witnessing.

The “Occupy Wall Street” protest/1960s nostalgia tour continues. Some of it is funny, while other aspects are kind of sad with respect to the incoherence of the protesters. Let me be clear [to quote a current president]: I have my concerns about Wall Street malfeasance as well, but those concerns center on the manner in which some Wall Streeters conduct themselves, not the capitalist system itself.

Capitalism cannot control all greed. The system works beautifully when it is carried out with Biblical principles; it fails when selfishness takes over. But that still makes it better than socialism, which fails every time. If you don’t think so, just remember the former Soviet Union, all the Eastern Bloc countries that it controlled, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. The story is the same wherever it is tried—utter failure.

Yet these protesters seem to want [as much as one can make out at all what they really want] a large government to take care of them. They call for the destruction of the capitalist system. They claim that profits are somehow immoral. But if you look closely, you see a lot inherent contradictions:

There’s something more than a little juvenile about their attitude:

They’re attempting to turn back the clock to the anti-Vietnam, anti-establishment protests of the 1960s, which were in themselves rather juvenile. The current protests come across similarly immature:

One might wonder what’s become of common sense. One cartoonist captured that sentiment:

Ideology, angst, and rage were on display rather markedly the other day, yet most of the mainstream media ignored it:

The hypocrisy of attacking corporations was most clearly depicted in a photo that has been making the Internet rounds:

Foolishness personified.

The Arizona illegal immigration bill remains a top story of interest throughout the nation. Polls are showing that a clear majority of Americans support what Arizona has done. Within the state itself, more than 70% of Arizonans continue to back the bill. Gov. Jan Brewer’s approval rating has skyrocketed.

Yet in the mainstream media, and in the halls of political power in Washington, Arizona is a pariah. President Obama played host to Mexican president Calderon last week. They had a lot of fun beating up on the state.

More voters for the party in power certainly is a priority for the president.

Then when President Calderon was given a forum to speak before Congress, he criticized Arizona for its actions.

There’s nothing like rank hypocrisy to open the floodgates of derision. Democrats, however, didn’t recognize the hypocrisy; instead, they gave him a standing ovation. In the history of America, this has to go down as one of the absolute low points for Congress. Perhaps it isn’t quite as low as the Gag Rule instituted back in the 1830s-1840s to stop any discussion of slavery, but it has to make the list.

I’ve commented before how administration officials haven’t even read the law. This points out another discrepancy in Democratic rhetoric.

Another example of rank hypocrisy.

The movement to boycott Arizona could hurt the very immigrants the critics want to support. If jobs suffer, who’s going to get hit first? Here’s an interesting angle on the boycott I hadn’t thought about:

This law actually may lead to illegals rethinking their desire to sneak into Arizona.

Maybe it’s time for this approach to be tried in the other states as well.

Most of the time I focus on a specific issue or person, but there are times that a certain theme applies in many situations. One theme that is always present, it seems, is hypocrisy.

Jesus had a lot to say about a class of people called the Pharisees. He spared no words in pointing out instances of hypocrisy in their lives. We have our own Pharisees today, and they exist on both ends of the political spectrum [witness the recent resignation of Republican congressman Mark Souder for an adulterous relationship]. I will point out hypocrisy no matter who is involved. In fact, I have a special interest in exposing it among conservatives because if it is allowed to proliferate, it will undermine any progress for reversing the current definition of “hope and change.”

It’s almost too easy, though, to highlight the hypocrisies of the current administration. They abound.

This is one of the most blatant. While Obama rails against “special interests” on the other side of the political divide, what about his connections? There’s nothing exaggerated in this cartoon.

He’s been particularly keen on blaming former President Bush for nearly everything that has gone wrong on the economic front. In a speech last week, he stridently proclaimed that he wasn’t going to hand the keys back to the party that wrecked the economy. While the Bush people have a lot to answer for, their guilt pales in comparison to Obama’s.

That looks like more than a ditch. Suddenly the ditch doesn’t seem all that bad.

Then we have the friends of the administration doing their share. Take, for instance, the comment from Hollywood leftist Woody Allen:

I thought all media types were in favor of freedom? They certainly want it for themselves when they make films that cross the line morally and politically. Apparently it’s just fine to take complete control if the one in charge wants to accomplish their goals.

Hypocrisy is rank among those who currently hold congressional seats. They’re a little concerned about keeping those seats. To what lengths will they go?

Some people do need to get a real job. Anyone who has spent most of his adult life in elected office needs to find out what it really means to earn a living.

Some politicians, though, are brazen to the point of incredulity. Richard Blumenthal, running for the Senate from Connecticut, has finally been called out for his statements about serving in the armed forces in Vietnam. It turns out he never went to Vietnam at all; he used all the deferments he could muster to stay out of the service, then finally got a plum post stateside where the chance of being gunned down by a Vietcong bullet was less than miniscule. Yet even after his blatant lie was trumpeted, he had the nerve to claim he simply misspoke and that those who had caught him in the lie were the real villains.

The heart of man is evil. Only a regenerated heart will change that. The only real regeneration comes via a restored relationship with the Creator. That restored relationship is available to all, but only through repentance and faith in the One who died that we might live anew.