Judge not. Or judge. Depends on the context.

Matthew 7.1-5.

Christians and pagans alike love to fling around the following Jesus quote a lot.

Matthew 7.1 KJV

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

Usually for one of two reasons. Both incorrect—though sometimes with good intentions.

1. Be kind to other people. When they offend you personally—when they’re clumsy or awkward, boorish or rude, look and smell and dress funny, have horrible taste in music and movies and comedy, or even sin in ways which really bug you—remember God still loves them, and so should we. Besides, it’s not like we don’t sin either. Or have our own offensive flaws.
2. Hey, don’t you judge me. “Judge not,” right?

Since kindness is one of the Spirit’s fruit, it makes sense to remind people to be kind and compassionate towards the weird or the sinful. When he was on earth, Jesus didn’t drive such people away; he ministered to them and befriended them.

Thing is, he didn’t just tolerate them: He forgave them. And forgiveness means they did do something wrong; otherwise there’d be nothing to forgive. Forgiveness indicates we do judge them—as either sinning or trespassing against us. But forgiveness means we’re gonna overlook it, and pay God’s grace forward. It’s not mere tolerance, which ignores their behavior, pretends they didn’t sin, pretends we’re not bothered… and festers within us like a sour tumor.

As for those folks who quote that verse in order to use our religion to their advantage, so they can evade judgment and consequences… well, they’re just being jerks.

He lives within your heart.

INDWELL ɪn'dwɛl verb. Be permanently present in someone [namely their soul or mind]. Possess spiritually.

[Indweller ɪn'dwɛl'ər noun.]

There’s a hymn we sang in my church growing up; “He Lives” by Alfred Henry Ackley. Chorus goes like yea:

He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way

He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart

You ask me how I know he lives; he lives within my heart

’Cause that’s the common Evangelical belief about where Jesus currently is: He’s in our hearts.

As a boy I was taught Jesus knocks at the door of our hearts, asking to come in. (Much later, I read that particular bit of Revelation and found out it doesn’t mean that. But anyway.) Once we permit Jesus entry, he takes up residence in our hearts. As kids a lot of us took this literally: We imagined a tiny Jesus taking over one of the chambers of our cardiac muscles, and even moving a bed and furniture into it. Bit cramped. One kid even told me the reason we bow our heads to pray is so Jesus can hear us better.

Where’d this live-in-our-hearts idea come from? One part bible, 99 parts popular Christian culture. And the bible part is dependent on the King James Version. Here it is:

Ephesians 3.14-19 KJV

14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19 and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith” in verse 17 is the only passage in the bible which refers to Christ Jesus living in anyone’s heart. It’s not that good a translation of the original, κατοικῆσαι τὸν χριστὸν διὰ τῆς πίστεως ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν/katikíse ton Hristón diá tis písteos en taís kardíes ymón, “Christ dwelling [among you] through the faith in your hearts.” Paul wasn’t telling the Ephesians Jesus lived in their hearts, but that the deep trust they had in Jesus—the trust in their hearts, not the Christ in their hearts—was why Jesus was with them.

But you know how we humans are: We take the germ of an idea and go nuts with it.

Hence the idea of Jesus in our hearts is really popular. You’ll find it all over English-speaking Christendom—and thanks to English-speaking missionaries, everywhere else. You’ll find it in Christian testimonies: “I know he’s real because he lives in my heart.” Sometimes they mean this metaphorically: Jesus occupies my thoughts, has my loyalty, I’m devoted to him, I love him. And okay, it’s fine to describe “Jesus in my heart” thataway. But does Christ Jesus, in whole or in part, materially or spiritually, dwell in me?

Nope. Wrong person of the trinity. That’d be the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 1.13-14 KWL

13 In Christ you heard the truthful word—the good news of your salvation!

In Christ you believed; you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit!

14 He’s the down payment of our inheritance—

releasing our trust fund—praising God’s glory.

The Holy Spirit’s temple: Multiple Christians.

From time to time Christians talk about how you, singular, individually, are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

’Cause the Spirit is sealed to every individual Christian. Ep 1.13 He lives in the heart of every single believer. And whatever God lives in is, properly, his temple. If he lives in you, it makes you his temple. If he lives in another Christian, it makes that person a temple. Dozens of Christians are dozens of temples. Billions of Christians are billions of temples. Get it?

But it’s not accurate. God has one temple.

As was kinda emphasized in the bible. Moses built the portable temple at Sinai, which English-speaking Christians call the tabernacle, and that was the temple for 4 centuries till Solomon ben David built a permanent one of gold-plated cedar in Jerusalem. The Babylonians burnt that down; Zerubbabel ben Shealtiel built another of stone; Herod 1 and his successors renovated it; the Romans eventually destroyed it. It was the one and only place the LORD intended to meet people for worship and sacrifice; it was the one and only place they kept his ark, representing his relationship with Israel. It was the one and only his name dwelt Dt 12.11 —which was the LORD’s way of putting it, ’cause obviously the Almighty can’t be contained by a mere building.

But the Jerusalem temple wasn’t the only temple of the LORD on earth. Jeroboam ben Nabat, king of Samaria, feared losing subjects to the king of Jerusalem, so he built two more temples. They didn’t have arks, but Jeroboam put gold calf idols in them, figuring that’d do; and since there’s a whole command against idolatry in the Ten Commandments, God and his prophets condemned Jeroboam’s temples ever after. After the Jerusalem temple was destroyed, Egyptian Jews in exile constructed a temple to the LORD in Alexandria, and Samaritans constructed a temple to the LORD at Mt. Gerazim. But neither of these temples were commanded nor authorized by God. He had his own plans. Always had.

And once his temple’s veil ripped open, Mt 27.51 it signifies God wasn’t interested in being worshiped from Herod’s stone building any longer. He was gonna build a temple from entirely different stones: Living people. Christians. Every Christian.

I’m not the Spirit’s temple; I’m one of the stones of its temple.

As are you. As is every Christian. We’re parts of his temple. Because the temple us us—collectively. The Spirit doesn’t have billions of temples; he only has the one. Same as always.