Do Not Judge, But Watch Out For False Prophets, Matthew 7 Explanation

Edited 21st Aug 2011 (see section in bold for the edited part)


In Matthew 7 Jesus started by saying "judge not that you be not judged" "for the measure you use, it will be measured unto you". He finishes by saying "watch out for false prophets".  At first glance (without studying it properly or comparing scriptures in context) it may seem like a contradiction in terms.

I mean, how can you watch out for false prophets without judging them?

Actually, there are many words we use (in English) which give a similar meaning to judge, but judge (in its severest sense) is much more than assessing another person. it is what the Crown Court might do. We use many words similar to judge: assess, examine, test, have opinion against, analyse, weigh up etc. In fact, we are told by John to "test the spirits  to see whether they are from God" and goes on to say "for many false prophets have gone out into the World" 1 John 4:1.   Is this not a form of judging?  We see the NT church exercising discipline  regarding wrong practice in the church. How can this be done without a form of judging take place?

So we need to consider the context of what Jesus was actually saying when He said "judge not that you be not judged"

We need to

Is It Sin To Touch The Lord's Anointed? What Does Bible Say?

Whenever a criticism is made against any recognised Christian leader the cry goes out "do not touch the Lord's anointed"! They quote from 1 Chron 16:22  and from 1 Samuel 26:9. Both passages are taken in isolation, well out of context (ie, they are not read in conjunction with the surrounding verses, passage, chapter, book and whole bible).


For example if we look at the above verses in context: 1 Chron 16:20-22 says "they wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. He allowed no man to oppress them; for their sake he rebuked kings: "Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm."


The whole passage and chapter is referring to the nation ISRAEL: ALL the people of that Nation as the anointed ones!


Then 1 Sam 26 (whole chapter) and subsequent chapters show the context was about David having a chance to kill King Saul and so free himself from his greatest enemy. David's decision not to kill King Saul was because God had anointed Saul to be king, so killing him would be to kill the king God had chosen. It is not referring to God's prophets (as the Lord's anointed) in this case.


There are no specific verses in the whole Bible that teach that prophets could not be challenged. In fact God told the people (through Moses) to check whether a prophet is true or false, ie to challenge them. Can we use the last isolated example (about King Saul) to allow any so-called Christian leader to say and do whatever they want to do, unchallenged?  Should we really use the example of King David to let them do this?  I will now answer those questions as follows:

Why We Should Expose The Tares of False Teaching In Our Churches

Based on a conversation I had with someone about false and deceptive teaching hitting our churches in these days and why it is important to expose it. They said that Jesus told us to not worry about it because tares and wheat should grow together. However, was Jesus saying that? Scripture teaches otherwise!. I felt so concerned about the implications of what this person was saying, that I felt I needed to search the scriptures. I would like to share with you what I found. It can be put into 2 sections where scripture covers "Preaching to the spirits in prison" and "tares and wheat". Preaching To The Spirits In Prison Before we ever make a doctrine from scripture we MUST compare scripture with scripture and never take a text out of context. If a scripture seems to be saying something but the rest of scripture teaches something completely different, then our interpretation of that text MUST be wrong.  Scripture teaches the following (which contradicts what Kenneth Copeland of Word Faith teaches):