Appreciation an Elevating Influence
Matthew 9:11
And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, Why eats your Master with publicans and sinners?


You cannot elevate, you cannot improve any man whom you utterly despise. You cannot bring the best out of a man if you do not believe that the best is somewhere in him. There is a shocking insolence in human judgments, and the tendency of them is to crush men down to their own base level, till the whole world is all thistles and all mole-hills, never a mountain and never a forest tree. When Cowper was a Westminster boy, he was despised as a shrinking, moping, ineffectual creature; it was not until the age of fifty, that in the warmth of loving appreciation, like flowers in the sun, the powers unfolded within him, which made him one of the sweetest of English poets. When Clyde became the hero of Plassy and the conqueror of India, his father said that he did not think the booby had so much sense. When Dal-garno, the ablest and most eloquent man of his day, went to an English countess as a candidate for the post of tutor to her sons, she insulted him with the remark that she could not possibly engage a person so stupid. So it is, we judge men not by what they are, not by what they might be, but by our own dull prejudices and ignorant misconceptions.



Parallel Verses
KJV: And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?

WEB: When the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"




The Model Readiness of Mercy
Top of Page
Top of Page