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By Michael Mooney, Exec. Elder
Through the Funhouse Mirror: When We Mistake Ourselves for the Standard #
We often walk through life as if holding a clear lens, assuming that we see people and situations as they truly are. In reality, we peer through a warped funhouse mirror of our own biases, unaware of how much we’ve mistaken our assumptions for objectivity. This is the peril Jesus warned of when He said, “If the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). Our minds, cluttered with unexamined conclusions, logical fallacies, and cultural scaffolding, tend to filter Scripture, relationships, and decisions through the grooves of our preexisting opinions.
The Pharisee Within: How Self-Righteousness Skews Sight #
The Pharisees, confident in their moral and doctrinal clarity, could not recognize the Messiah standing in front of them (Matthew 23:16–28), proving that even the most religiously disciplined among us can suffer from severe perceptual blindness. It is not that they lacked information. They simply had no room for anything that challenged their mental framework. Our cognitive traps are rarely overt; they feel like wisdom.
That is why Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12:2 “to be transformed by the renewal of our “minds.” This is not optional. It is essential. Without that renewal, we are not discerning God’s will. We are just baptizing our own preferences. A pastoral response to this spiritual condition is not accusation but invitation: to walk with believers gently into self-reflection, prayer, and Scripture-soaked transformation, where truth can lovingly dislodge deception, and light can once again fill the eye.
Seeing Ourselves in Others: The Trap of Projected Righteousness #
Jesus’ image of the man inspecting a speck in another’s eye while ignoring the log in his own (Matthew 7:3–5) is not just a warning against hypocrisy. It is a vivid diagnosis of perceptual failure. We do not merely misjudge others; we often mislocate the problem entirely. Peter demonstrates this when, after correctly identifying Jesus as the Christ, he sharply rebukes Him for speaking of suffering and death. Jesus responds, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 16:23), revealing how easily spiritual pride cloaks itself in protective concern.
Peter’s desire to preserve Jesus was filtered through his own assumptions about what the Messiah should be, and he mistook his own reflection for divine insight. It is much like the man who believes he is looking in a mirror, only to discover too late it was a window all along. He did not see others; he just projected himself onto them. This misperception afflicts leaders too.
In pastoral life especially, it is tempting to confuse theological certainty with Spirit-led discernment. The danger is not in conviction. It is in the inability to name our assumptions and reexamine them in community. When the mirror lies, the whole body of Christ suffers. But when truth gently confronts our sight, even logs become opportunities for repentance, and vision becomes restoration.
Echoes of Eden, Fire from Heaven, and the Devotion That Deceives #
Bias rarely begins as rebellion. It often arrives cloaked in conviction. Consider Saul, who spares King Agag and the best of the Amalekite livestock “to sacrifice to the Lord” (1 Samuel 15:15). He frames disobedience as devotion, yet the prophet Samuel exposes the deeper truth: “To obey is better than sacrifice.” Saul believed he was honoring God, but he was really honoring his own judgment. This pattern echoes all the way back to Eden. When confronted with their sin, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. Neither named their heart’s distortion. They just redirected the light away from their shadows.
That same misdirected passion pulses through James and John, the “Sons of Thunder,” who in Luke 9:54 wanted to call down fire on an inhospitable village. Their zeal was scriptural, but their aim was carnal. Jesus rebuked them gently but firmly, reminding them (and us) that spiritual power without self-awareness becomes destructive. In each case, what looked like righteousness was simply bias, weaponized by unexamined desire.
The Man with Blurry Glasses: How Distortion Becomes Doctrine #
Imagine a man who wears blurry glasses but is certain the problem is not with the lens. It is with the world.
Every building seems crooked. Every face seems off. So, convinced of his own clarity, he begins to clean his lenses constantly. Not just wiping them, but sanding them down, reshaping the glass to fix the blur.
Eventually, the lenses warp. But he does not notice. Why? Because the new distortion matches what he already expects to see. His world finally looks right. Not because it is, but because his expectations now match his broken lens. This is how mindset errors reinforce themselves. Instead of challenging our view, we double down and call it discernment.
For pastors and teachers, the danger is even greater. The study can become a sanctuary for the familiar. Books that affirm us. Sermons that echo us. Conversations that confirm us. Over time, our interpretive lens can become so honed by agreement that any opposing voice feels like a threat rather than a gift. But we are not called to curate consensus. We are called to shepherd truth. Because sometimes, the most faithful thing a leader can do is admit when the lens needs to be changed, not cleaned.
Grace for the Blurry-Eyed: Walking Others Toward Clarity #
As shepherds, teachers, and believers, we must vigilantly watch the lens through which we perceive God, others, and ourselves. The most dangerous assumptions are not the loud, obvious ones. They are the quiet certainties we no longer question. These become the grooves our minds fall into when we interpret Scripture, evaluate others, or make decisions in ministry. But God calls us to more. He does not demand flawless sight, but honest sight. A willingness to let the Spirit search us. To pray as David did: “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts” (Psalm 139:23). Vigilance in the Christian life begins not with suspicion of others, but with the courage to examine our own perception in the light of God’s truth.
Jesus never mocked those with fogged lenses. He rebuked, and always for the sake of restoration. When Peter tried to prevent the cross, Jesus did not disown him. He named the distortion, called it out, and continued walking with him. That same Spirit-led gentleness is how we help one another confront bias today. Pastoral ministry requires truth-telling, spoken with compassion. We walk into people’s blind spots not with hammers, but with hands that lift. And sometimes, what they need most is not a new argument, but a companion willing to sit with them in the tension of unlearning. To say, “You may not see clearly yet. But you’re not alone in the process.”
Still, clarity has a cost. Letting go of old frameworks can feel like disloyalty. Like death to all we’ve known. But it is this very death that Jesus speaks of when He calls us to lose our life for His sake, that we might find it (Matthew 16:25). Unlearning is not failure. It is discipleship. It is pruning. It is the road to deeper fruitfulness. So we grieve what must go. We bless what has served. And we walk forward, eyes slowly clearing, hearts still burning. Because when the lens is honest, even pain becomes holy, and sight becomes grace.
