RRR_Judgment
First Kings, chapter 3 verses 16 through 28. Tells the story that one day, 2 women came to king Solomon, and one of them said your majesty, this woman, and I live in the same house not long ago. My baby was born at home in 3 days later, her baby was born. Nobody else was there with us one night while we were all asleep. She rolled over on her baby and he died. Then while I was still asleep, she got up and took my son out of my bed, she put him in her bed, then she put her dead baby next to me in the morning, when I got up to feed my son, I saw that he was dead. But when I looked at him in the light, I knew he wasn't my son, the other woman shouted, he was your son, my baby is alive. The dead baby is yours, the first woman yelled mine is alive. They argued back-and-forth in front of Solomon, and finally, he said, both of you say this live baby is yours someone bring me a sword. A sword was brought in Solomon, ordered. Cut the baby in half that way each of you can have part of him. Please don't kill my son the baby's mother screamed your majesty. I love him very much, but give him to her. Just don't kill him. The other woman shouted go ahead and cut him in half. Then neither of us will have the baby. Solomon said, don't kill the baby, then he pointed to the first woman. She is his real mother, give the baby to her. Everyone in Israel was amazed when they heard how Solomon has made his decision, they realise that God had given him wisdom to judge fairly.
When we discuss judgment It's almost impossible not to go back into this incident. This story, of course, it's interesting to realise how many thousands of years have passed since this story took place.
But here it is, etched in clay and passed down to us so that we have this record of this amazing decision. This is judgment.
There's a famous movie. Many current generation Gen Z's and millennials have not heard of; but it's a it's a movie called "Judgment at Nuremberg,"and Judgment at Nuremberg is about the time when the planet earth wanted revenge.
They wanted revenge on Adof Hitler and his henchman, not saying that that revenge wasn't merited, not saying that that revenge wasn't even in good keeping, with steadfast justice; which we're gonna discuss next, but in terms of judgment, judgment at Nuremberg is in the very title of the movie?
And actually, this is a dramatisation of actual events.
This trial really took place. What is judgement? How do you judge?
Well, one of the things about judgement is this. There's a famous passage in the Old Testament, where it talks about the prophet, Daniel and handwriting on the wall. And we realise that, that handwriting was there, and that was miraculous, and the frightening the king was miraculous.
But the truth of the prophecy was that your life has been weighed and found wanting.
Judgment is often pictured as a lady blindfolded with scales in her hands, meaning that the good and the bad have to be weighed, and what overcomes the other is how the weight falls down on one side, or the other. Judgment is not a simple dychotomous matter; we would love it to be. We would love things to be black
and white, but are things ever black and white?
When Jesus was dealing with the Pharisees, I am now discovering after many years of research and study that these were actually people that may have been in his lineage, because they may have arisen, the Pharisees, from within the line of the Lion of the tribe of Judah. So it's important to understand that many times what we think is an accurate judgment may, in fact not be an accurate judgment.
So how do you know(?) well judgment can most definitely be learned? Take courses on decision-making, take courses on logic. Learn about logic, read about logic, read about decision-making because it's not just a blind process where you throw issues up against the wall and see if they'll stick! Judgment means that you have taken the time to bother to gain the knowledge to properly assess situations.
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