I have become someone who judges everybody. It happens in my head before I have even spoken to a person, and it is not who I want to be.

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

Micah prophesied to a nation that was confident in its religious observance while treating vulnerable people badly. His famous summary holds three things together: justice, mercy and humility. It is very easy to keep the first without the other two, which produces exactly the sharp-eyed, low-mercy religion he was arguing against. Judgement without mercy was a recognised failure long before it was yours.

“Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.”

Paul is writing to a church split over diet and holy days, with each side certain the other had compromised. His question cuts underneath the argument: who are you to judge another man's servant. The logic is about employment rather than tolerance. The person you are quietly assessing answers to someone else, and that someone else is entirely capable of managing them.