The Labels We Hang on People

Part One: The Labels We Hang

Let me tell you a story about a woman nobody in that room understood. She was standing in the sanctuary at Shiloh, and her lips were moving, but no sound was coming out. Her face was contorted with an ache that had been building for years. She couldn't have children, and the other wife tormented her about it, and now she was at the house of the Lord, and she was pouring out her soul.

And Eli the priest looked at her, and he saw something completely different from what was going on. He saw a woman whose lips were moving, no sound coming out, her face twisted — and he concluded, immediately, she must be drunk. Not praying. Not in desperate grief at the altar. Drunk. He walked over to her and said, how long wilt thou be drunken? Put away thy wine from thee.

Eli was the high priest. He was supposed to have discernment. He was supposed to be able to tell the difference between a woman in spiritual agony and a woman who found a bottle outside the temple. But he couldn't. And the reason he couldn't is not that he was malicious. It is that he used his eyes instead of his spirit, and the two forms of judgment look exactly alike until they produce their fruit.

Then in verse fifteen, Hannah answers him, and her voice breaks through his blindness: No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial. In other words: you got the label wrong. You saw what you thought you saw. You read it through the lens of everything you assumed, everything you expected, everything you had seen before. And you were completely, entirely mistaken.

How many times have we done the same thing?

We look at somebody. We see what they're doing. We fill in the story from our own lens, and we hang a label around their neck. And then we treat them like the label. And we don't even realize how wrong we are until the label falls off, and often by then the damage is already done.

Part Three: What the Bible Gives Us Instead of Labels

The Bible does not say never form an opinion. It doesn't say never assess a situation. It says be very careful how you do it, because the kind of measure you use will be measured back to you.

God Looks at the Heart — We Can't

First Samuel 16:7. The Lord said to Samuel, look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord seeth not as man seeth. Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. God doesn't need to be told not to judge by the outside, because He can see the inside. We can't. So we have to be told, over and over, to stop doing it. When you look at someone, you're looking at the outside. Their clothes, their posture, their expression, the slice of their life that you happen to see. That is not the whole person. It is not even close.

Righteous Judgment Looks Like Slow Judgment

John 7:24: Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. That is a command to judge righteously, not a command to never judge. But the kind of judgment that is righteous is always slow. It waits. It goes inside. It asks. It checks the fruit, not the moment. Righteous judgment says, I don't know the whole story yet. It asks. It's curious, not prosecutorial. Eli could have walked up to Hannah and said, Daughter, what's going on? Are you okay? But he didn't. He led with the accusation. Righteous judgment asks. Carnal judgment already thinks it knows.

Get the Log Out First — and It's Always There

Matthew 7, Jesus again. Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Jesus didn't say we can't help people with their specks. He said deal with your plank first, because a person with a two-by-four in their eye cannot see well enough to do surgery on somebody else's sawdust. If you are quick to hang a label on someone else, check your own eyes first. There's probably a beam.

Be Swift to Hear, Slow to Speak

James 1:19: Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. The order matters. Swift to hear means you listen first — not listen to respond, listen to understand. Slow to speak means you don't fire off the label the moment it forms in your head. Slow to wrath means you don't let your anger race ahead of the facts. If Eli had been swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, he would have heard Hannah's prayer instead of scolding her for a sin she wasn't committing.

Love Believes All Things

First Corinthians 13:7: Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Believing all things doesn't mean love is naive. It means love doesn't assume the worst. It doesn't default to a prosecutor's stance. It gives the benefit of the doubt. Labels hang best on people we've already stopped loving.