Is It Always Sinful to Act on Negative Assumptions?

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People are tired of hearing nothing.

But doom and despair on the

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The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject

Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty

God is hanging over our heads.

They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath

come, they will be consumed, and they will perish.

God wrapped.

Himself in flesh, condescended, and became a man, died on

the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the

Father, where he sits now to make intercession.

For us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods

of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

All right, Tim, the question for today's episode is, is it always wrong to act on negative assumptions about

other people?

No.

No.

No.

Yeah, I like that.

That's funny.

I bet a lot of people were probably, well, I don't know, I guess if you're listening to us, you always expect the answer that

you probably least expect from someone else to say, but okay,

so no, it's not always wrong to act on negative assumptions,

so why not?

What kind of scenarios are you having in mind when you're saying no to a question like that?

Yeah, so a lot of this has to do with the.

Meaning of the word assume or assumption.

Well, I know how to spell it.

Yeah, the assumption essentially is to take something for granted as if it's true

without necessarily having conclusive proof that it actually is true, so there's a sense in which

if you were to think about love believes all things, love hopes all things,

you want to generally assume the best about people, particularly about loved

ones.

The Bible would generally encourage you to think the best about them, to try to put their actions in the best possible

light, and then we're not omniscient, right?

So we don't know everything, and so in the absence, there's many situations in which

you don't have the time to test every assumption.

A general rule that biblical counselors will say is don't assume, ask, and that's fine as

far as it goes, but then it's not the kind of thing that you can do in real life

consistently.

Right, so you have to make decisions in the moment, and life is filled with thousands and thousands of decisions in the

moment, and the only way to navigate life is to have wisdom, right?

So you have to have wisdom.

You have to know how things generally go in the past and make speculations about how they're going to go in the present,

and so what you have to do in order to live life is you're going to have to, at times, assume

the worst about people and even act on it in the absence of the ability to verify everything.

So let me just give you a couple scenarios about how this works and then try to talk through a way of

distinguishing this from just making uncharitable assumptions about people in a wicked kind of way, but

when you have a telemarketer call you, and

they sound like they're from Pakistan, what do you assume?

I mean, I just hang up.

I just assume that whatever is about to happen is going to be a waste of my time.

Okay, all right, but that's a negative assumption that you just made.

Do you understand?

You just made a negative assumption about a person calling you on the phone with an accent from

Pakistan.

You assume that they're probably trying to steal from you, right?

And this is a waste of time, so you assume that they're probably...

Now, can you verify it?

No, right?

Now, you can go through that sales pitch and spend 30 minutes of your day giving them

all the information that they're requesting because you're operating under good faith assumptions, thinking the best about that individual who

you've never met before and you didn't ask to call you, right?

So, you can go through that whole procedure and get to the part where they're asking you to wire the Western Union

money order.

Go buy the gift cards.

Right, right, right.

So, you could do that or you could say, hey, you know what?

I don't have time to walk through this big speech, particularly when people call so

many times during the day, right?

This is God's time.

It's not my time.

I need to redeem the time because the days are evil.

I know typically how this has gone in the past and you're

making a habit just to hang up, right?

Not even deal with.

It, right?

Yeah.

All right.

Well, I don't think you have to...

Well, I mean, now, thankfully, the phones will just say spam

and it's like, all right.

All right.

So, often they do spam,.

But then sometimes numbers will get through and you have to figure out...

Yeah, they do slip through.

Now, let's just say that you don't even answer the phone, right?

Because it's a number you don't know, then what kind of assumption are you making at that point that

you're operating under the assumption, I don't know this number?

If it's important, they'll leave a voicemail.

If it's important, if not, they're probably trying to scam me, right?

Yeah, typically.

All right.

So, in that moment though, that's a negative assumption you're making about an individual who is sending you

this call, whoever that is, right?

Who lovingly decided to take time out of their day to call me and talk to

me.

Right, right.

So, you're making some sort of assumption there that's a negative assumption about what's happening and then you're actually acting on

it too, okay?

And we do this, this is just a part of life

where you go into a...

You're sitting at a restaurant or whatever and you see someone...

There's a scenario like this that I acted upon where there's a guy walking into the church one time

and he looked a little bit shady, right?

He looked a little bit shady, so he was flagging all these shady

kind of things and there's a hand motion that people can make when

they're going into a situation like that to where they see the church,

right?

They're looking at the church building, I'm standing outside, he sees our church building, looks at the church building, then

immediately his hand goes down to his pocket like this, right?

And then he crouched over a little bit and starts walking very determinedly into the

church building, right?

And so, what I assumed in my mind, it was a negative assumption, I said, does he have a gun in his pocket, okay?

And I acted upon it, meaning I went, I followed him in there and I stood at

a distance behind him to see what he was doing, right?

And I was ready to go in case he was like something...

He was planning on taking his hand out rapidly from his pocket, he would have been tackled

really quickly by me, okay?

Because I followed him in.

Now, I made an assumption there and I was acting upon that assumption, but then you can make assumptions in different

ways.

You can assume that something looks suspicious and you're going to act upon it

and I could then make a bigger assumption in that moment saying, okay, he's trying

to...

He's a church shooter kind of guy and I could have taken the knife out or gun out or whatever and just

unloaded on him and ask questions later, right?

Well, that would be a different level of assumption, right?

So, the action plan there could be very different than me just saying, okay, that looks suspicious, I'm going to act upon it, I'm going to follow him in.

And so, I'm making a negative assumption that looks odd, right?

I'm going to act upon it, but I can't decisively prove it.

And so, part of what's happening here is you have different senses to the word assumption, particularly when you're talking about

something like a negative assumption in that way.

And I think Christians should realize that we're not omniscient and we can't know...

We need to have a very high standard of proof before we know anything absolutely, right?

Or certain beyond a reasonable doubt kind of certainty with any of these things.

And so, there's a lot of things that are just above your pay grade, but then you do have to operate in the real world

and make real decisions in real time based on things that you can't always verify instantaneously in

the moment to the degree to which you would like.

And so, there's a very different posture to say, okay, that guy ducked down, put his hand in his pocket, he's

going to shoot everyone up, right?

I didn't know that.

I didn't know he was going to shoot, but I can say, hey, that looks really suspicious.

I'm going to alter my behavior in light of that looking very suspicious.

And I'm going to assume, like, my operating assumption is he may be up to no good, right?

And so, it's very different to have an operating assumption to say he may be up to no good and I'm going to act upon that than it is to say I

know without a shadow of doubt he's up to no good and I'm going to act upon it, right?

So, in the same way, like when you have a telemarketer calling you, you have to operate.

You say, hey, he's probably going to scam me.

This is probably a waste of time.

I don't want to do this, right?

I don't want to go through this.

Typically, when I was on the job hunt, I'd have people calling me for a group.

Like, whenever I heard group interview, I thought to myself, wasted time, probably a scam, not going to bother with it,

right?

Pyramid scheme, probably a pyramid scheme, not going to mess with it.

So, what you don't have to do as a Christian is just be totally naive and reject all wisdom, right?

Yeah.

Was it Jesus that said, you know, be wise as serpents and innocent as doves?

Yeah, be wise as serpents.

And he even tells his disciples to go and take their money and buy a sword because they're going in

dangerous areas, right?

And then Paul, you know, of credence, he says, you know, that they're always lazy, gluttons, evil beasts, and

liars.

And he says, you know, a prophet of your own says, and he says this testimony is true.

So, I mean, there are generalizations that you can make that are a category of negative

assumptions about people that you say, hey, these are tendencies, like negative tendencies that certain

people have, certain groups of people have.

You know, everyone can, you know, if you see a prostitute greeting you on the side of the road and, you know, her behavior

is in the language of the Bible, wily or whatever, right?

You can say, I think she's probably a prostitute, right?

And I'm not going to go near her in that way.

I don't want that.

So, I think wisdom, like part wisdom means you learn to read certain patterns and then you

operate on the basis of those readings.

But then what you don't do is you don't absolutize it, right?

You don't say, I know for sure, like you don't say, okay, she's throwing off prostitute vibes, so let's throw her.

In jail, right?

Yeah.

Well, that's what I was going to ask you is like, how do you determine what the line is in

any given scenario between like an appropriate response that's informed based off of

negative assumptions and an inappropriate response?

Yeah, I think so.

I think assuming.

Probabilities is perfectly fine, right?

So, I assume she's probably a prostitute, okay?

I assume she's probably, I assume this telemarketer is probably trying to scam me, right?

I assume this interview is probably a scam.

I assume like based on the evidence I have that this guy looks like a dangerous person, right?

So, you're operating under that, but then you don't convict on the level of

assumptions, right?

Does that make sense?

So, like you can assume something's probable or you can decisively say like, so there's two

senses of like how assumptions can work.

One is you're assuming you're taking for granted it's probably true, right?

Or are you taking for granted that it absolutely is true and you're convicting on very small amounts of information?

But all I'm trying to say is in order to live life, there's plenty of times where you just have to make assumptions, okay?

Like you're assuming certain things are probable and you're operating under the probability of that and like

not in really how you distinguish between when it's righteous or unrighteous is like, is the

person owed certain responsibilities from you in that moment or not?

Does that make sense?

What do you mean?

Okay.

All right.

So, telemarketer calls, he's not, I don't owe him my time.

Like he doesn't deserve it.

It's not his, it doesn't belong to him.

And if I were to give every telemarketer all the time that they are requesting of me by making me jump through all these

hoops and answer all these personal questions, like in order for me to, you know, know for

absolute certain that they're a telemarketer, like if I had to figure out for absolute certain they're a

scam before I could hang up on them, then I would be wasting a lot of time

there, right?

So, they're not owed my time and they're not owed my consideration in that way.

So, I don't know them.

I don't know them that, okay?

So, in that way, you know, I'm making reasonable predictions about the way life works and making reasonable

predictions.

I see, I hear Pakistani voice, right?

In America, I'm in America.

I hear Pakistan voice, right?

From a number I don't know.

My name is Andrew or something.

Yeah.

And then, yeah.

I mean,.

So there's certain signs like, and now you don't have absolute burden.

You don't have like a absolute, like, this is a scam.

Like I can convict you in a court of law, but you know, because I'm not owed,

like, you're not owed anything.

Like, you're not owed my time in this way.

There's a sense in which a Christian can just say, hey, you know, this is God's time.

I'm not going to waste it in this way.

I'm going to make certain rules that help me navigate life that means that I'm more productive in life with the things that God wants me to do.

And I'm not going to give all of my time to, you know, son, don't give your strength to women.

Son, don't all of your time to telemarketers, right?

It's a wise way to live your life, right?

Like in that way.

Right now, now, so on the other hand, right?

Like there are certain people who are owed certain things from you, right?

Like, so, you know, your church member calls you up and, you know, they, and you think,

you know, I, they call you up and, you know, there's a negative

assumption that Paul pops in your mind that, you know, maybe this is one of those church members who constantly can't pay

their bills.

Right.

And then like, you can immediately assume something negative about, but you actually do have a responsibility to understand where they're coming

from to shepherd them in that moment.

Right.

You're trying to understand where they're coming from, shepherd them in that moment.

And you can't just say, Hey, nope, you know, not dealing with you.

Been there, done that.

I got that t -shirt.

I know exactly how this is going to go and not doing this anymore.

Right.

So like, you know, part of that relates to like the responsibilities you have to the person.

And then the other part of it is just like, you know, we are, we're Christians.

We're not God.

We don't know everything.

And, you know, in order to live life, you're going to have to make plenty of assumptions you're going to operate on in the moment because you can't

verify everything the way God has, but then you don't want to convict someone like formally convict someone or

formally land in an absolute sense, like in a negative posture based on very little

information.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

So in general, I think you should stick away from like assuming the worst about, you know, people

like, and then particularly dogmatically declaring the worst to be true in the absence of very little

information.

However, on the other hand, you do have to actually like, you can't test everything in the moment.

And so, you know, sometimes when you see certain patterns, you're going to have to operate under those for the purpose of wisdom.

Okay.

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