Let us take a moment to consider one of the most misquoted scriptures in the entire Bible, which is in the book of Matthew.  Here we read,

 Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?  You hypocrite, 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.  Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you (Matthew 7:1-6 ESV).

Many will read this passage and immediately say that we are not allowed to make any judgments, based solely on the first verse of Matthew 7 (Judge not).  Is this what Jesus is really saying?  Are we to make no judgments at all based on this?  If, however, we read the rest of the context of this passage, we will find that Jesus is instructing us to not make any rash or unrighteous judgments.  Notice that Jesus tells us to first take care of our own affairs (take the log out of your own eye first), before we take the speck out of someone else’s eye.  It is important for us to realize that He does not say that we should not remove the speck from our brother’s eye.  We need to be able to see clearly in order to do that so that we will judge with righteous judgment.  Elsewhere Jesus tells us, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment” (John 7:24).

We should also take special notice of verse 6 of Matthew 7.  How can we be sure to not give to the dogs that which is holy, or to cast our pearls before swine, if we do not make some sort of judgment about our audience?  Perhaps we could think of it this way.  Suppose that we came upon a woman with a flat tire along side of the road, and we stop to help.  Why did we stop?  Did we make a judgment that she is not capable of fixing the problem herself?  What if we come to a dark alley and decide not to venture that way?  Did we judge ourselves as ‘better’ than that alley?  You see, we make dozens of judgments everyday, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as we are judging correctly.