Though upon first glace, Matthew 7 may appear to be telling us not to judge others (people, ministries, etc.), Jesus’ purpose here is quite the opposite.  Rather than advising his listeners not to judge, he’s instructing them to judge rightly, as opposed to hypocritically or inappropriately (using a bad test to judge).  For instance, in this passage Jesus tells us that we should use a prophet’s “fruit” to judge whether or not he is a prophet from God or if he speaks one his own behalf.  However, in looking at a prophet’s fruit, we often ask, “Well, does the person have good works (fruit)?”  This seems to be a good test until we realize that we’ve just ‘opened the door’ to Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and many others in deviant religions who seem to have good works.  What went wrong in this test?

The problem is that we are assuming that the “fruit” of a prophet spoken of by Jesus here in Mt 7 is the fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Gal 5:22 (kindness, goodness, gentleness, etc.).  However, Jesus labels these sort of good qualities (kindness, etc.) as “sheep’s clothing” in the context of Mt 7.  He warns us that false prophets may appear to have the outward dressing of a real relationship with God’s Spirit, but that it is a mere costume.  Rather, the fruit of a prophet is his or her (1) prophecies and (2) proclamations about the nature of God.

This above mentioned ‘fruit of a prophet’ comes to us from the Old Testament, which Jesus was steeped in.  In Deut 18:20-22 we read how God tells the people that if a person’s foretelling or prediction of the future doesn’t take place (fruit), then the people can conclude the prophet to be false.  Further, in Deut 13:1-5 God instructs His people to go a step further.  He tells them that even if what is foretold comes true, and yet the prophet directs them to worship a God other than the God of the Bible (fruit), they are to also conclude that this is a false prophet.

So, the “fruit” of a prophet is not his good works, but his predictions of the future and/or what he says about God.  Don’t be confused by a disguise of mere outward appearances.  Look at what a person says about the nature of God.  Does it line up with the Bible?  As Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?” (Mt 16:15).  He seemed to think that this is the all-important question.  We should too.