Thought Exercise on Human Judgments

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The Glory of Man & the Glory of God

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 33:18-23, Isaiah 6:1-4 , Daniel 4:28-37, John 17:1-5 , 2 Corinthians 3:7-18, Psalm 19:1

What resonance does the word glory have in today’s English language? How often is it used, and with what meaning? The adjective glorious is familiar enough—we might say that we saw a “glorious” sunset...

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Judgment and Joy Don't Go Together

Author

Jacob Traeger

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:14-16, James 5:9, Numbers 14:27, 1 Corinthians 10:10, Luke 5:30, 1 Timothy 2:8, Exodus 15:24, Luke 6:37, Matthew 7:1-5, 1 Corinthians 5:12

Judgment and joy don’t go well together – no, judgment leads to grumbling. I’m sure you’ve met people in your life who are hard to please – maybe even your parents, or your boss. People for whom n...

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Experience is Honest

Author

C. S. Lewis

Keywords

What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings; but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs ...

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Taking the Measure

Author

Jen Wilkin

Keywords

Scripture

1 Samuel 16:7, 1 Kings 18:33-35, Isaiah 55:8-9, Matthew 7:1-2, Psalm 139:1-3, Luke 6:38

One of my favorite movies is Hoosiers (1986). It tells the story of a small-town basketball team from Hickory, Indiana, that finds greatness under the leadership of their coach, Norman Dale. The...

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Reducing God to Manageable Terms

Author

A. W. Tozer

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 32:1-6 , 1 Samuel 4:3-10, Isaiah 40:18-25, Matthew 16:13-20, Acts 5:1-11 , Psalm 115:4-8

A. W. Tozer once wrote, Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get Him where we can use Him, or at least know where He is when we need Him. We want a ...

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Do You Want to be Judged?

Author

Ken Sande

Keywords

Ken Sande, the author and director of Peacemaker Ministries, puts it this way: “How do you want others to judge you? Do you want them to believe good about you instead of evil? To interpret your a...

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The Covenants of Scripture

Author

Merrill F. Unger

Keywords

Covenant

Scripture

Hebrews 13:20, Genesis 1:26-28, Genesis 1:26, Genesis 3:14-19, Genesis 3:14, Genesis 8:20-9, Genesis 9:5-6, Genesis 12:1-3, Galatians 3:16, John 8:56-58, 2 Corinthians 3:7-9, Deuteronomy 30:1-10, Deuteronomy 30:1, 2 Samuel 7:4-17, Luke 1:31-33, Acts 1:6, Revelation 19:16, Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20, Hebrews 8:8-12, Galatians 3:13-20

Eternal covenant, Heb 13:20—The redemptive covenant before time began, between the Father and the Son. By this covenant we have eternal redemption, an eternal peace from the ‘God of peace’, through th...

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The Spectrum Of Conviction

Author

Tim Muehlhoff and Richard Langer

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:26, Genesis 9:5-6, 1 Thessalonians 1:5, Romans 14:1-23, Romans 8:26-37, 1 Corinthians 1:17

So how can we form deep Christian convictions without dividing the church? Let’s take a deeper look at convictions themselves. Convictions are like light: they come in many colors and form across a sp...

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Judging Others Stems from Self-Judgment

Author

Curt Thompson

Keywords

But it is important to be aware that the act of judging others has its origins in our self-judgment. As I often tell patients, “Shamed people shame people.” Long before we are criticizing others, the ...

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The Justice and the Mercy of the Judge

Author

Frederick Buechner

Keywords

Judgment

We are all of us judged every day. We are judged by the face that looks back at us from the bathroom mirror. We are judged by the faces of the people we love and by the faces and lives of our children...

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A Better And Wiser Judge

Author

Source Unknown

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 21:2, Revelation 20:12, James 2:12-13, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Romans 14:12

Horace Gray was a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. During one of his cases, a criminal was about to be released, not because he was innocent, but because of a technicality. As Gray prepared to relea...

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The Problem with the Human Race

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 3:10, Psalm 130:3-4, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Ecclesiastes 12:14, James 2:10

Imagine you have an invisible recorder around your neck that, for all your life, records every time you say to somebody else, “You ought.” It only turns on when you tell somebody else how to live. In ...

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Rationalizing: Making Life Possible in a Morally Challenging World

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We rationalize to make life with ourselves possible in a morally challenging world. Often the motivation for rationalization, though, is quite different. In recent decades, psychologists have argued c...

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Stereotypes Affected by the Time of Day

Author

Daniel H. Pink

Keywords

Did you know that we are more or less likely to act with prejudice according to the time of day? Daniel Pink, in his excellent work, “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” draws from recent...

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Weapon/Tool Test

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Split second decisions can reveal prejudices that we aren't aware of ourselves. This is particularly important in split-second decisions with life-or-death consequences, such as police officers ha...

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Thinking Gray

Author

Steven B. Sample

Keywords

In his book The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, former president of the University of Southern California Steven Sample, details a critical element leaders must possess if they wish to make sound ju...

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The Most Damaging Charge

Author

Richard J. Mouw

Keywords

Scripture

Leviticus 19:15, Proverbs 18:17, 1 Kings 3:9, Matthew 7:1–5, John 7:24, Psalm 141:5

At a recent gathering of seminary professors, one teacher reported that at his school the most damaging charge one student can lodge against another is that the person is being “judgmental.” He found ...

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Addicted to Putting People In their Place

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 18:9-14

As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will be filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain a...

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The Nebulous "They"

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 1:10, Colossians 3:23, Psalm 139:13-14, Proverbs 29:25, Romans 8:31, 1 Thessalonians 2:4, 1 Samuel 16:7, Romans 12:2, John 1:12

George Herbert Mead, an influential early 20th-century sociologist, coined the term “generalized other” to describe the vague group we consider when shaping our actions. How often do we behave a certa...

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The Big and Little Choices

Author

Michael Lewis

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 16:9, Psalm 37:23-24, Isaiah 30:21, Luke 16:10, Matthew 6:34, Ecclesiastes 9:11

The pioneering work of Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky has been popularized in recent years by the gamut of notable thinkers, including Malcolm Gladwell (Blink) and, in this cas...

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Fallacies We Experience During Periods of Uncertainty

Author

David Brooks

Keywords

Fallacies

The more complicated the landscape, the more the wanderer relies on patience. The more confusing the scene, the more tolerant his outlook becomes. He not only has an awareness of his own ignorance, bu...

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Salvation & Judgment

Author

Source Unknown

Keywords

In much of contemporary society, we are only willing to focus on God’s love and grace, rarely on God’s wrath or even judgment. This story is a good reminder that God’s relationship towards us is multi...

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Turning from Judgment to Compassion

Author

Gregory A. Boyd

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 10:5, Matthew 7:1-5, Luke 6:37-42, Romans 14:10, James 4:11-12, 1 Corinthians 4:5

Even for those of us who follow Jesus on a daily basis, the reality is, our sinful nature has infiltrated our minds, and we often find ourselves, either consciously or unconsciously, judging those aro...

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Human Beings are Like Rivers

Author

Leo Tolstoy

Keywords

Leo Tolstoy, the writer of some of the most beautiful and complex stories in literature, had this to say on the topic of human nature and qualities that define us: One of the commonest and most gene...

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Being Wrong

Author

Kathryn Schulz

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 23:12, 1 Corinthians 8:2-3, James 4:6, Isaiah 5:21, Romans 12:3, Proverbs 18:2, Proverbs 15:33, Psalm 18:27

In her aptly title book, Being Wrong , Kathleen Schulz describes just how difficult it is to be wrong: A whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the ti...

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Beyond the Behavior of Flawed Humans

Author

Francis S. Collins

Keywords

God's Existence

Scripture

1 John 4:7-8, Romans 12:2, Isaiah 55:8-9, Psalm 34:8, John 14:6

So, while the long history of religious oppression and hypocrisy is profoundly sobering, the earnest seeker must look beyond the behavior of flawed humans in order to find the truth. Would you condemn...

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Daring to Glance

Author

Terry Linhart

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 12:15, 1 Corinthians 13:12, James 1:22-25, Psalm 19:12, Proverbs 14:12, Jeremiah 17:9, 1 Corinthians 3:18-19

One helpful, practical tool to understand our blind spot is what’s called the Johari Window, an image developed as a counseling tool in the 1950s. Subjects were given a list of fifty-six adjectives, a...

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Our Problem

Author

Brant P. Hansen

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 14:2-3, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Luke 18:9-14, 1 John 1:8, Romans 3:23, Jeremiah 17:9, Isaiah 64:6

Dear Everybody, We have a serious problem: All of us think we’re good people. But Jesus says we’re not. Sincerely, Brant P. Hansen …PS. IF YOU THINK I’M WRONG—about how we think we’re good people...

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Manipulating Justice

Author

Gary A.Haugen

Keywords

Justice

Scripture

Romans 12:17-21, Matthew 23:23, Amos 5:24, Zechariah 7:9-10, James 1:19-20

As any parent of small children will tell you, children have an amazingly acute sense of justice. Even the most fractional disparity in the distribution of the most trivial family good will be met wit...

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Deceitful Hearts and Desert Shrubs

Author

Casey Clark

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 17:9

We may find it hard to believe Jeremiah’s words that the heart is “deceitful above all things.” We would rather look outward and think, Yes, others may be quite foolish and misguided. But I have a ...

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