Back to the Bible: Matthew 7:1-6
John 3:16 may still be the most famous Bible verse, but I think the first part of Matthew 7:1, “Judge not,” is giving it a run for its money. But, to understand what Jesus is saying, we need to see it in its context.
In these verses, Jesus says don’t judge so that you won’t be judged. He explains that the standard that you use on others will be applied to you as well.
He illustrates the way we approach judging by saying sometimes we try to get a piece of sawdust out of someone else’s eye, while we’ve got a log stuck in ours! If we’re going to get the speck out of their eye, we’ve got to get the log out of our own first.
Jesus’ point here is not that we can never point out someone’s sin or that we can never call someone to repentance. Jesus is not saying we shouldn’t make some “judgments.” Just look at verse 6! We have to determine who the dogs and pigs are! Further, verses 15-20 show us how to judge if someone is a false teacher.
What Jesus is saying is that we should not criticize others when we’re not willing to address ourselves. Jesus is condemning hypocritical judgment.
Jesus balances verses 1-5 in verse 6. We don’t want to hypocritically judge, but when we see that people want nothing to do with the truth, then we should walk away. It would be a waste of time and perhaps a danger to throw it to them.
Lessons to Learn:
Don’t be a hypocrite. Jesus is not calling us to perfection. But, we should not be the kind of person who only sees the wrong in others and never in ourselves.
We want the “specks” out too. Notice that Jesus encourages getting the log out of your own eye and the speck out of someone else’s. If we are being called to repent by someone else pointing out their sin doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem too. It’s hard to take corrections from a hypocrite, but we need to want to be corrected when we’re wrong.
When you judge, judge righteously. Jesus said that in John 7:24. To do so, we must be applying the standard to ourselves and use God’s word as the standard. We don’t want to evaluate someone from a human perspective, but from the Lord’s perspective.
We’re thankful to share these considerations of God’s word. It’s best if you have a Bible close to evaluate what we say. We want to go “back to the Bible” for all we teach.
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