Some years ago, four people planned a mountain goat and moose hunting trip to a remote area in Alaska for 14 days. This story concerns two of the hunters, one young man who had just turned 18 and a 64-year-old man, who was an accomplished hunter, filling in for someone who couldn’t make the trip. The young hunter was livid when he found out that one of the hunters had backed out, and felt the older man would not be able to keep up.
Any wilderness can be dangerous, so the hunters planned to hunt in pairs. When the men drew straws, to the teen’s disdain, he was paired with the older man and he made it clear what he thought of him, calling him a relic, an antique and ready for the rocking chair. While they were setting up camp, the young hunter continued to be rude, hardly speaking to his partner. The next morning, after a five-mile hike, the older man spotted some goats on the side of a steep mountain. The young man climbed up and shot one of the goats, but because of the steep decline the dead goat fell down the mountain for a couple of hundred yards, coming to rest on an area of snow. The young hunter quickly pursued his quarry, ignoring his partner who was frantically signalling him to stop.
Unfortunately when he walked out onto the snow, the patch of snow gave way, dropping 80 to 100 feet, and the young hunter fell, crashing into rocks and ice below. When the older hunter reached him he saw one of his ears was almost torn off, and he had broken multiple bones, including ten ribs. He was hemorrhaging from his ears, nose and mouth and laboring to breathe because of a punctured lung. As he drifted in and out of consciousness, he begged the old man not to leave him.
Inspite of how the young man had treated him, the older man did his best to help, making the decision to carry the 192-pound man to the camp, which included crossing a glacial stream. He put into practice Jesus’ admonition in Matthew 5:44: “… love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”
While recuperating in an Anchorage hospital for the next 2 1/2 months,the judgmental young hunter had time to think about how he had acted toward the man who had saved his life. The 18-year-old hadn’t looked beyond the cover of the book. It took a nearly fatal fall for him to learn the important spiritual lesson that we should never form an opinion based on outward appearances, but look to the inward man as John 7:24 instructs: “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
Judging others based on what they look like is a human trait that is difficult to overcome, and we have all been guilty of it. God judges without partiality, looking on our heart and our willingness to serve others (See 1 Samuel 16:7 and Galatians 3:28). James addressed this problem in James 2:1-4: “My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy [“shabby” in the New International Version and Revised Standard Version] clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ and say to the poor man, ‘You stand there,’ or, ‘Sit here at my footstool,’ have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?”
Christians are instructed to make righteous judgments, based on what a person does, rather than their outward appearance. 1 Corinthians 6:2-3 tells us “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you will judge the world, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?”
Jesus Christ instructed us in His Sermon on the Mount: “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you” (Matthew 7:1-2). Many therefore assume it is wrong to pass judgment of any sort. Strong’s Concordance notes that the word translated “judge” in Matthew 7:1 can also mean “condemn.”
Christ was pointing out that, as we are incapable of seeing a person’s heart or knowing his or her relationship with God, we are not to take the place of God in making judgments about someone’s motives or eternal salvation. But while we cannot discern what is in another person’s heart, we can judge actions. There are times God calls on us to discern the actions of others because of their effects on us (Proverbs 22:24; 1 Corinthians 5:11).
Hebrews 5:14 tells us that the spiritually mature are “those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” We are not to judge where a person stands with God, because we are simply incapable of doing so, but we must be able to “discern both good and evil” in our actions, as well as the actions of others, in order to grow in wisdom and avoid falling into sin.
