Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Judge not according to appearance

Pam Padgett ... teacher

As Jesus neared the time He would be taken and crucified, a woman came and poured very precious ointment over His head ...

Mark 14:1 After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. 2 But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people. 3 And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.

Some were indignant that the precious ointment had been poured on Jesus' head, having judged by their own minds that this wasteful and wrong.  Surely, they reasoned, the ointment should have been sold and money given to the poor ... 

Mark 14:4 And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? 5 For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.


But Jesus told them that what this woman had done, which looked wasteful to the natural mind, was a good work in the sight of God ... 

Mark 14:6 And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. 7 For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. 8 She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.

Rather than being chastened for anointing Jesus with the precious ointment, what she did would be spoken of for a memorial of her as the gospel is preached throughout the world ...

Mark 14:9 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.



When Jesus was being wrongfully judged for healing on the sabbath, He taught ...

John 7:23 If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day? 24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

What seems good and worthy to our own mind may not be what is right in the sight of God.  God's view of each situation is what matters.  Jesus taught that He judged according to what He heard of the Father, seeking to judge according to the will of the Father ....

John 5:30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.