The Standard

The only correct standard is the standard of the Scriptures. Almost no one measures and judges entirely according to this standard.

Everyone has his own standard, which can be more or less influenced by some of the words of Scripture—some more, some less. This means that it is never completely correct.

Take, for example, being wholehearted. Most people evaluate this completely incorrectly, using their own standard; i.e., it does not take much before they think they are wholehearted. However, perhaps one is not even halfhearted, according to the correct standard.

Or when someone is to evaluate his own generosity quite often it does not take much before he discovers that he is very generous—according to his incorrect standard—despite the fact that the standard of the Scriptures would indicate that he was actually very tight-fisted, almost miserly.