Article September 11, 2000 Issue

Good cookies

How to find the sweetness in life

Jane L. Claypool

A Friend asked if I would like a snack. "Yes, thank you! Hot milk and cookies would be nice," I said. Then she wanted to know what kind of cookies I would like. "Any kind," I answered. "To me, all cookies are good."

This set me to thinking how delicious life would be if I approached it with the same kind of conviction, the conviction that all people are good, too. It could greatly reduce the petty annoyances, hates, and fears of daily life. I thought about the standards used to judge a cookie at a county fair and wondered what yardstick the Bible gives for judging people. The opening chapter of Genesis states that God made the true, spiritual selfhood of each of us in His image and likeness, and that God declared all that He had made to be good (see Gen. 1:26, 31). No exceptions.

The Bible also says to "judge righteous judgment" (John 7:24). One dictionary explains the word righteous to mean acting in accord with moral law. True moral law would be the law of God. To judge means to form an opinion after carefully weighing evidence and testing premises. Judging righteous judgment, then, would mean forming an opinion, or thinking, in accord with moral law or, better yet, God's law. But how does one do this?