"Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things."
Romans 2:2
This is a good reminder about hypocrisy and the danger of judging other people. I think if we take the time to examine our lives that almost all of the things that we condemn are things that we had to learn too at some point, and most of the rest we likely have yet to learn. There might be some things that we are just really good at from the beginning, but that's rare, and is also going to be different for different people. When we judge other people's weaknesses by our strengths, we're being amazingly unfair to them, and also to ourselves, because we're practically inviting God to judge our faults by his strengths, and all he has are strengths.
Now, of course I am not saying that we shouldn't evaluate our options in life and make choices, including things that involve people--deciding who to trust, who to date, who to work with, etc. Those are all areas where we need to make wise decisions given the information available. As it says in John 7:24, "Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." So, how do we walk that tightrope of avoiding bad judginess but making sure we stick with the good kind of evaluation and righteous choices?
God is always the answer, but I also think that is part of the idea here. The trick is to involve ourselves in the equation, right? If we think about similar things that we have done, we might be able to find more compassion for the people around us. We can make wise choices about where to spend our time without those choices involving condemnation or mockery. We can think about what it would be like to be in the other person's shoes every time we are going to make a choice affecting anyone, and maybe we can learn to be less judgy. Most of all, we can look to God in everything. He is the one that we all have to answer to, and if we always include ourselves in the equation... applying our evaluations first to ourselves and only then to others, perhaps we can move past inexcusable to forgiven, and stay there, learning to love as he does, including even our enemies (Luke 6:27).
Romans 2:2
This is a good reminder about hypocrisy and the danger of judging other people. I think if we take the time to examine our lives that almost all of the things that we condemn are things that we had to learn too at some point, and most of the rest we likely have yet to learn. There might be some things that we are just really good at from the beginning, but that's rare, and is also going to be different for different people. When we judge other people's weaknesses by our strengths, we're being amazingly unfair to them, and also to ourselves, because we're practically inviting God to judge our faults by his strengths, and all he has are strengths.
Now, of course I am not saying that we shouldn't evaluate our options in life and make choices, including things that involve people--deciding who to trust, who to date, who to work with, etc. Those are all areas where we need to make wise decisions given the information available. As it says in John 7:24, "Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." So, how do we walk that tightrope of avoiding bad judginess but making sure we stick with the good kind of evaluation and righteous choices?
God is always the answer, but I also think that is part of the idea here. The trick is to involve ourselves in the equation, right? If we think about similar things that we have done, we might be able to find more compassion for the people around us. We can make wise choices about where to spend our time without those choices involving condemnation or mockery. We can think about what it would be like to be in the other person's shoes every time we are going to make a choice affecting anyone, and maybe we can learn to be less judgy. Most of all, we can look to God in everything. He is the one that we all have to answer to, and if we always include ourselves in the equation... applying our evaluations first to ourselves and only then to others, perhaps we can move past inexcusable to forgiven, and stay there, learning to love as he does, including even our enemies (Luke 6:27).
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