One night there was a woman at the airport who had to wait for several hours before catching her next flight. While she waited she bought a book and a pack of biscuits to spend the time. She looked for a place to sit and waited. She was deep into her book, when suddenly she realized that there was a young man sitting next to her who was stretching his hand, with no concern whatsoever, and grabbing the pack of cookies lying between them. He started to eat them one by one. Not wanting to make a fuss about it she decided to ignore him. The woman, slightly bothered, ate the cookies and watched the clock, while the young and shameless thief of biscuits was also finishing them. The woman started to get really angry at this point and thought ‘If I wasn’t such a good and educated person, I would have given this daring man a black eye by now.’
Every time she ate a biscuit, he had one too. The dialogue between their eyes continued and when only one biscuit was left, she wondered what was he going to do. Softly and with a nervous smile, the young man grabbed the last biscuit and broke it in two. He offered one half to the woman while he ate the other half. Briskly she took the biscuit and thought, ‘What an insolent man! How uneducated! He didn’t even thank me!’ She had never met anybody so fresh and sighed relieved to hear her flight announced. She grabbed her bags and went towards the boarding gate refusing to look back to where that insolent thief was seated. After boarding the plane and nicely seated, she looked for her book which was nearly finished by now. While looking into her bag she was totally surprised to find her pack of biscuits nearly intact. ‘If my biscuits are here’, she thought feeling terribly, ‘those others were his and he tried to share them with me.’ Too late to apologize to the young man, she realized with pain, that it was her who had been insolent, uneducated and a thief, and not him. (story borrowed from http://alqamardesigns.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/think-twice-before-judging-others/)
It's really easy for us to judge other people, especially if they don't come from the same type of living situation, or even the same class in our economy. Most of the time, people are judged by the clothing they wear and the little mistakes they make. We don't know the situations people are in, so who are we to judge them? In my opinion, we should leave the judging up to God, the one who knows every single person better than they know themselves. Get to know people. Don't immediately label them just because of what they wear. All this goes back to "Don't judge a book by it's cover." People aren't always what they seem. Besides, if you judge people, you have no time to love them. Be cautious about people (meaning look at their intentions and personalities), but under no circumstance should you be judgmental about their outward appearance. My mom always told me "I don't care if the people you see are blue, purple, orange, green, round, square, or have funny hair styles. Be nice to them, they could eventually be your best friend."
Text out of context is pretext for prooftext.
ReplyDeleteJohn 3:16 used to be the most known scripture- even by non-Christians. Now it's Matthew 7:1 and it's one of the most abused scriptures in the Bible.
We must judge, we are commanded to judge. When you don't judge you are actually disobeying God. Granted, you must judge righteously, and not be a hypocrite. (as 'judge not lest ye be judged'' says when taken in its full context.) You must also judge yourself. But not judging is unbiblical. The Lord Jesus Himself said we are to judge righteous judgment (Jn. 7:24).
We are to judge sin in the church (1 Cor. 5:3, 12). “For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, ... For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?”
We are to judge matters between the brethren (1 Cor. 6:5). “I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?”
We are to judge preaching (1 Cor. 14:29). “Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.”
We are to judge those who preach false gospels, false christs, and false spirits (2 Cor. 11:1-4). “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.”
We are to judge the works of darkness (Eph. 5:11). “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”
We are to judge spirits (1 John 4:1). “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”|
We are even to judge all things (1 Cor. 2:15-16). “But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”
The spiritual man does not judge things by his own thinking but by the mind of Christ in the Word of God. He knows that he lives in a fallen world filled with lies and error and spiritual deception and he knows that he has the light of God in the Scripture and he thus judges all things by that.