Judgment and Fault-Bound Perception

I had written in a post several months ago about how every time we judge someone we are assuming a role that was never intended for us and belongs to God alone. I'm reading a book now that has been giving me even more insights into this topic. It's called Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God, and it's written by Gregory Boyd. To give credit where credit is due, a lot of what I will say here is inspired by this book.

One of the things that's extremely important to remember in considering Jesus's command to "Judge not" is the fault-bound nature of our own perception of things. It is extremely rare, if it ever happens at all, that the reality of something matches up 100 % with the way things appear to us. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 13:12, "we see in a mirror dimly." At the time he wrote this, mirrors we're not clear glass like we have now. They were made of steel, and so the reflection was somewhat dark and distorted. According to Paul then, the way we see and understand things now is obscured. Even when it seems like we have enough evidence to have it all figured out, our eyes and our brains our imperfect, and we can never trust that we have the whole truth.

Unfortunately, it seems that we often make judgments even when we are not even close to knowing the full story. For one simple example, say you're eating in the mall, and a very obese man sits down at the table next to you. He weighs about 300 lbs., and he has a big, greasy supersized meal from McDonald's. You notice all of these things, and you think to yourself, with a bit of disdain, "Man, this guy needs to change his diet."

That is what you see, your perception. Potentially, this could be the reality: yes, he weighs 300 lbs., but 6 months ago he weighed 350 lbs. He's been keeping a strict diet and exercising regularly. Part of his diet is that once a month he gets to eat whatever he wants, and McDonald's is his favorite place to eat. You happened to catch him on the one day a month that he gets to indulge, and then you judged him based on that one, single encounter.

This is just one imaginary scenario of a type of thing that actually happens all the time. Constantly we (and I use we to include myself) judge people based on things that are really not our business in the first place. Even for people we know well, we usually don't know all of the various factors, circumstances, and motivations that influence their actions. The Bible is clear that only God can fully know the heart of a person, so not only is he the only one with the right to judge, he is the only one fit to judge. Who the heck are we? Who appointed us judges? Who told us that we get to separate the wheat from the chaff? It is my understanding that only God can do that.

If this subject challenges you and interests you, I strongly recommend Boyd's book. He goes much deeper on a topic that I just touch the surface of here.