How not to judge

Scripture Reading: Acts 28:1-7

As the book of Acts comes to a close, just before arriving in Rome, Paul finds himself shipwrecked on the island of Malta. Paul was gathering sticks for the fire they built to warm themselves and dry off after swimming ashore when he was bitten by a deadly serpent. The islanders, seeing what had happened and expecting Paul would quickly die, made a quick assessment and determined that Paul was a murderer. They based this on two things: First, Paul was shipwrecked. Second, he was bitten by a deadly serpent. Therefore, since the shipwreck didn’t kill him, the gods or fate sent the serpent to get the job done and what person deserves that kind of fate other than someone who is a murderer?

Well, as we know, Paul didn’t die from a snake bite. So, as the people watched on, waiting for Paul to fall over, convulse and die, and seeing nothing bad happen; they changed their minds about Paul. They decided he was a god. From murderer to god in a matter of moments.

While we can easily see the foolishness of the Maltese people in this story, we often make the same error. We judge people’s standing on how life treats them. If they are healthy, wealthy, and happy we assume they’ve been good boys and girls. If they are sick, poor, and miserable we figure they probably deserved it.

And that’s a bad way to judge people. It is foolish. It is unbiblical. We end up calling things not as they are but as we assume they are. We judge everything wrongly.