John 7:24

“Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”

Things are not always as they appear to the beholder.  Therefore, it is necessary to make righteous judgment.  This is done first by being slow to react, then by asking questions in order to not jump to a false conclusion.

If what you see is not what it appears, that is understandable if the person you are watching has a habit in the past of doing what you believe you saw.  But even then, careful discernment is necessary.  These past actions cannot be used as an excuse for you to make an unjust judgment.

Your reaction to what you judged in appearance may become one of anger or accusations, and will be sinful even though you thought it justified.  We must not judge by appearance alone.  We must make righteous judgments. Many people have been hurt and relationships destroyed by jumping to false conclusions by what seemed so certain only to learn later you made an unjust judgment.

People in Jesus’ day judged that Jesus was the carpenter’s son so he could not be the Messiah.  They observed that He did not deliver them from the Romans so He was a liar.  He claimed to be their King but he did not appear to be a king so they cried out, “We will not have this man rule over us.”

Yet, if they would have opened themselves to getting all the facts—and they were plentiful—they could have made a righteous judgment.