Judging without eyes and ears

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
"He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hers with his ears, but with righteous he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth." Isaiah 11: 3b, 4

"Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire." Confucius

A college teacher handed out a brief half page biography about the guest who was about to lecture, but the students did not know that there were two bios. The left side of the class was told that the guest speaker was warm, humorous, funny and a popular speaker. The right side of the class was told that he was serious, professional, efficient, nonhumorous. The man gave his talk, left, and the teacher had the students rate the speaker and his talk.

Though both sides heard the same man give the same speech at the same time, their reactions were very different--skewed by the preconceptions they had from the brief bio they'd been given. The left side rated him as funny, warm, friendly, a good speaker. The right side rated him as more professional, serious, less humorous, and, surprisingly, not such a good speaker. The brief bios not only twisted their perception of the man's personal traits but also of his competence!

In my Xiamen University Organizational Behavior classes I teach how easily our perception of things, and especially of people, can be twisted. I even pull a few tricks on the students, and they invariably fall for them, even when warned in advance, because our minds all pretty much work the same way, and we are much less objective than we think when we look at the world around us. If I meet a person for the first time with someone I distrust, that influences my thoughts of them. If they disagree with me on important subjects, that too can bias me against them. And when I read the daily news in the paper or on the internet, clever but slanted reporting (we're 'patriots' but they are 'nationalists', our 'government,' they're 'regime') can close our eyes to the truth.

If others easily influence us, we also easily influence others. Just one word from us can plant a seed of doubt or mistrust in others--or a good word, timely spoken, can lift up. A friend who visited Xiamen said of a waiter who was having a bad day, "Their lives are so fragile. A complaint or a wrong glance from a customer and they might be fired, and not easily find another job."

Our minds' perception is easily twisted, but fortunately we also have a heart--and the Spirit of our Father. Ask for understanding, clarity of thought and perception, and seek to judge fairly, not just based on preconceptions or personal interests.

Our words can lift up or tear down. Try to make it a point today to lift up.

Isaiah 11:3 says of the coming Prince of Peace that he will "be of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord," but F.B. Meyer, in "Our Daily Homily" (London, 1894), notes that the Hebrew for "quick understanding" is "quick scent":

"QUICK of scent! This is the prerogative of all who have received the fullness of the Holy Spirit. We all know the great advantage of having a keen scent. Those who can instantly detect an ill-odour are saved from going into places where pestilence and fever lurk in ambush for life. The whiff of ill-odour startles the unwary passer-by, and warns him that influences inimical to health are brooding nigh. Thus he is arrested and saved.

"It's a blessed thing when a man's spiritual senses are exercised to discriminate between the good and bad, the healthy and unhealthy, in literature, amusements, fellowship, and many of the questionable or doubtful things which professing Christians permit. There are many of these which appear innocent enough, like some deadly spot of a jungle where miasma and fever breed; but the deadly scent of corruption will instantly be detected by the Spirit-taught spirit, and the child of God, whose sense are exercised to distinguish between good and evil.

"The sense of smell is greatly quickened by inhaling pure air, full of ozone and health, such as breathes about the mountain-brow or the ocean wave. If we return from such scenes, we are more sensitive than ever to foul odours. Live with God's Spirit in holy fellowship, so will you become spiritually quick of scent.

"The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that our sense become quick to distinguish between good and evil by reason of use (Heb. 5:14). In the first stages of Christian living, temptation may have stolen in upon and mastered us before we were aware of its presence. But, as years pass, and we become mature through feeding on the meat of the Gospel we become 'quick.'"
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