Further Instructions from the Mount - Pt 3

 

[Jesus said] “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1–5 ESV).

 

Our reading today speaks to Jesus’ condemnation of the improper judgment of others. It begins with this simple warning: “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you” (Matthew 7: 1-2). In his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, W. E. Vine says the word judge “primarily denotes to separate, to select, to choose, hence to determine, and so, to judge or to pronounce judgment.”

 

Jesus is saying that we ought not to assume the office of a judge, in the sense of the Lord’s judgment. Jesus is condemning harsh, censorious judgment. We are not to be hypercritical or hypocritical. As Max Lucado wrote, “It’s one thing to have an opinion. It’s quite another to pass a verdict. It’s one thing to have a conviction; it’s another to convict the person.”

 

Jesus uses a humorous illustration of someone who has a log in their eye trying to remove a shaving from someone else’s eye. Ridiculous. Absurd. And wrong. First, remove the glaring fault from your life before you try to correct others for their minor flaws.

 

Judging is wrong when we judge others by jumping to conclusions without knowing all the facts, without understanding the situation or the circumstances, by impugning and attacking their motives, with partiality, partisanship, and prejudice, with censorious, nit-picking, hair-splitting assumptions, by appearance instead of righteousness, and without grace, mercy or love. Further, we ought to remember the “log in our own eye”… when we have worse faults in our own lives which need correcting.