There is a guy at work who always compares, unfavorably, my work with his. At one time he got so bothered he called a staff meeting and said, “Look how much I do, and how much my co-worker here does. Is this fair?” He was genuinely bothered. My answer was, “You do may do even twice as much as the rest of us do, but the quality is only half as good, if that. I continually have to go after you and correct what you’ve done. It is sloppy work and unacceptable.”
My point is this: we all, instinctively, compare what we do with what others do, but because of our bias we misjudge. Jesus, as usual, put it best: we can perceive the splinter in the other’s eye while being oblivious to the beam in our own.
Notice that in the parables the observer may be, to some degree, right. The Pharisee praying in Luke 18 correctly perceived that around him were many sinners: robbers, adulteresses, evil-doers, and tax collectors. In Matthew 18:28 the unforgiving servant was, in fact, owed money by the other. But the problem was that their perception was distorted. Like the parable of the splinter and the beam, the observer could only see the failure of others, but is missed their own. Thus, they misjudged. Their attempt to “keep score” was flawed, and could not stand before God.
Likewise in John 8 the woman was, indeed caught in adultery. But the accusers themselves were guilty before God. So who of them could condemn her?
And on the positive side of the ledger, the story of the “widow’s mite” comes to mind. The rich ones may have congratulated themselves on the hefty “clunk” their bags of gold and silver may have made when falling into the offering box. But Jesus said that the widow had “put more” (Mark 12:43, NIV) than the rest. God was judging differently than they were. God's scale is different than ours.
So who of us can judge? Who among us can “keep score” on this side of the Judgment Seat? I warrant that none can do this, truly. We can see, partly, but are prevented from seeing all, and then judge incorrectly by both our lack of omniscience and by the distorting effect of our own soul's bias. That is why I spoke of my co-worker initially. He did correctly perceive that his output was higher than the rest of us. But his resentment was ill-founded because there were other factors at play which he didn’t and couldn't account for. And going home at night and congratulating himself on how much “more” he was doing than everyone else was like the praying Pharisee: he could see only a little, and using this limited sight as the basis of assessment and comparison was vain.
This brings me to the purpose of this thread. The other day I saw a website promoting one of the “servants of God”, Dong Yu Lan. I quote:
A servant of Christ for the work of expanding the kingdom of God on the earth and the growth in the life of the children of God
http://reino.net.br/artigos/dong-yu-lan-eng.html
(to be continued)