How To Properly Evaluate Another Person’s Heart

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It is human nature to criticize, judge and execute judgment on others. We don’t like that done to ourselves, but we are often more than happy to do that to everyone else who does not measure up to our personal yard stick. The Corinthians had this kind of trouble in their congregation. The question is what is the proper way to evaluate another person’s heart?

1Co 1:11 My brothers, some members of Chloe’s family have made it clear to me that there are quarrels among you.

Their particular quarrel was about which man was the better one to follow.

1Co 1:12 This is what I mean: Each of you is saying, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to the Messiah.”

It is a silly quarrel which Paul points out then promptly tells them to get some wisdom – some Godly wisdom, leaving the nonsense of the world behind – because this is how worldly people act.

1Co 1:19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the intelligence of the intelligent I will reject.”
1Co 1:20 Where is the wise person? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? God has turned the wisdom of the world into nonsense, hasn’t he?

Immature believers – spiritual babies – whine, cry and complain about others. Mature believers do not.

1Co 3:1 Brothers, I couldn’t talk to you as spiritual people but as worldly people, as mere infants in the Messiah.
1Co 3:2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, because you weren’t ready for it. And you’re still not ready!
1Co 3:3 That’s because you are still worldly. As long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, you are worldly and living by human standards, aren’t you?

The Corinthians were quarreling because they were still babies thinking that their personal opinion about which teacher to follow was more important than delving into the Torah to get real nourishment, the meat. Instead, they continued to suck on the milk through their jealousies. They were trying to plumb the depths of each others’ souls, claiming to know each others’ thoughts. They should have been plumbing, judging and evaluating the Torah, instead.

Paul encouraged them to let go of the things of this world and to grab hold of the spiritual things of the Messiah’s Spirit. There is more in that realm to keep us busy than we can possibly scrutinize in a a lifetime. He pointed us to the evaluation of the things of God rather than attempting to evaluate the inner being of others.

1Co 2:15 The spiritual person evaluates everything but is subject to no one else’s evaluation.

We are able to evaluate and judge everything in the LORD’s creation from the most basic to the deepest level. Yet, no man is able to judge the depths of another man’s soul.

We often seek to judge and execute our judgment on others from what we think is in their heart. The fact is that no human is able to plumb the depths of another person’s heart. All that we can do is to judge people by their actions. We have to leave the judging of other peoples’ interior landscapes to YHVH.

1Co 3:3 That’s because you are still worldly. As long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, you are worldly and living by human standards, aren’t you?

How, then, is Paul able to make a judgment that people in the Corinthian congregation are jealous? Isn’t jealousy subjective and part of a person’s interior landscape that can only be judged by YHVH? No. That is because of the quarreling Paul addresses. Where there is quarreling, there is jealousy or some other internal spiritual sickness going on.

1Co 3:4 For when one person says, “I follow Paul,” and another person says, “I follow to Apollos,” you’re following your own human nature, aren’t you?

It is evident that they are following their human nature because what is inside a person does come out of them. We know what is inside of someone by what he DOES! We don’t know what is inside a person by trying to ascertain what we think is in his heart. If there is evil in someone’s heart, it will come out eventually. Until such time as the evil comes out and we can actually point to the LORD’s list of crimes against the Torah – i.e. the commandments – we can’t make a case against the person. That is why we must always be able to list incidences and occurrences of sins and describe which commandments have been broken. It is not enough to say we “know their heart”.

In the case of these Corinthians, one might point to any number of commandments that they are breaking. For instance, the situations with Miriam and Korah come to mind. While there are no specific commandments about gossip and power-grabbing, the fact that these two were judged for their actions should be warning to us. Miriam and Korah’s actions did not come from righteous judgment, which we are commanded to uphold, but rather from the jealousy in their own hearts. Their jealousy and that of these Corinthians have the same root and the same result.

Miriam’s words showed what was in her heart toward Moses. Before she spoke, no one knew what was in there. But it eventually came out, didn’t it? The same with Korah. He was a power-grabber who gathered 250 other leaders in the camp to join him against Moses and Aaron. Korah was going to build his own kingdom on the LORD’s territory. The actions of Miriam and Korah become principles to live by and principles by which each of us will also be judged as the LORD judged them.

1Co 3:14 If what a person has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
1Co 3:15 If his work is burned up, he will suffer loss. However, he himself will be saved, but it will be like going through fire.

What we contribute to the Kingdom will come under scrutiny by Yeshua. What remains after the fire of His Spirit has done its work is what our rewards will be based on. It would be better for us if we made sure that our actions and the words that come from our mouths are building the Kingdom and not destroying it before we act or speak. Why waste our time with unprofitable actions or speech that will only get burned up when we could be building His Kingdom and getting a greater reward later – a reward that will make it through His test by fire?

1Co 3:16 You know that you are God’s sanctuary and that God’s Spirit lives in you, don’t you?
1Co 3:17 If anyone destroys God’s sanctuary, God will destroy him, for God’s sanctuary is holy. And you are that sanctuary!

We are a holy congregation. None of us are holy individually. We are only holy within the congregation. Paul speaks to the people saying “you”, plural, are the sanctuary. Is the sanctuary holy? Yes! Are we to treat it as holy? Yes! Then why do we treat each other as just another common item on the earth to be loved or despised at our own whims?

1Co 3:20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are worthless.”

The thoughts of the worldly wise are worthless. The thoughts of His Spirit are worth His entire Kingdom.

1Co 3:21 So let no one boast about human beings, since everything belongs to you,
1Co 3:22 whether Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, the present, or the future—everything belongs to you,
1Co 3:23 but you belong to the Messiah, and the Messiah belongs to God.

In the end, there is only the Messiah. Individually we are nothing. We are only “something” by, in and through Him! The answer to the question, “what is the proper way to evaluate another person’s heart?” is that we can’t and should not even try. We must turn our evaluations inward. Our walk with the Messiah is one of introspection and evaluation of ourselves and being at peace with others, acting in mercy and kindness, leaving our jealousies to burn on the daily altar because it comes from our flesh and not His Spirit.