I showed a variety of pictures of teenagers of various looks. They were instructed to look at the pictures and take a few seconds to write down first impressions of the person…who they are, how they act, etc. Also, write down if you would interact with this person, and if so, how would you treat them?
We watched the scene where King Arthur encounters the peasants in the field.
King Arthur passes by some people working in the field. Arthur begins to make some assumptions that aren’t entirely true. The entire scene deals with judging people based on their appearance or their work. The people that Arthur encounters even question the assumptions Arthur has about himself and his position as King of the Britains.
Questions:
Why did you act the way you did to people because of their ‘traits’? Why are our actions kind of preconceived in different ways because of different people’s characteristics or our impressions of them?
What did King Arthur see that made him assume the things he did about Dennis and the others?
Why didn’t King Arthur take the time to get to know Dennis?
Was King Arthur the only one making assumptions?
What assumptions did Dennis make about King Arthur?
Who seemed to be closer to the truth in their assumptions?
Based on this encounter, what kind of king does Arthur seem to be? How does he feel about peasants?
Read:
Matthew 7:1–6 1Don't condemn others, and God won't condemn you. 2God will be as hard on you as you are on others! He will treat you exactly as you treat them. You can see the speck in your friend's eye, but you don't notice the log in your own eye. 4How can you say, "My friend, let me take the speck out of your eye," when you don't see the log in your own eye? 5You're nothing but show-offs! First, take the log out of your own eye. Then you can see how to take the speck out of your friend's eye. Don't give to dogs what belongs to God. They will only turn and attack you. Don't throw pearls down in front of pigs. They will trample all over them.
In this passage, Jesus elaborates on a law that is familiar to the Jewish community: it is not acceptable to judge another person. This is important for a variety of reasons. Those who judge can never know a situation in its entirety. Because they don’t know all the details, they are incapable of being objective enough to pass judgment. Finally, Jesus shows that no person has the right to judge another. We should only be the judge of our own lives.
Why do people place so much emphasis on first impressions? Have you ever had an experience where your first impression was wrong?
Have you ever been given a label or judged falsely? How did you feel? What did you do?
Why shouldn’t we judge others? According to the passage in Matthew, what will happen to the person who judges someone else?
What do you think Jesus means when he uses the metaphor of the plank in someone’s eye? Or a speck in someone else’s eye?
What does judging others have to do with acting like dogs or pigs?
In both the movie clip and the Matthew passage, we see the negative effects of being judgmental, yet we are still tempted to judge others so quickly. Why?
Why are we so caught up in outward appearances?
How would the conversation have been different if King Arthur responded in the way prescribed by Matthew 7:1–6?
What are some ways we can engage others without judging them?
How should people respond when they discover they have misjudged someone?
Does this apply to your life at all? If so, how so?
This is something that we have talked about from time to time but is still and always a problem with all of us in some form or fashion. Not judging others is one of the things that we need to be constantly reminded of, in the hopes that our judgments and notions of people and groups will lessen more and more. We need to take the time to know others or at least try to understand those that have traits different than ours. Let God judge us and others, we just need to try to live the most Christ-like lives that we can every day.
Close in Prayer.
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