Leave them free

A Plank in Your Eye

One of the most painful experiences my family and I have endured occurred in a church where I served as pulpit minister. Our married youth minister ran away with our unmarried church secretary and split the youth group right down the middle. Some of the young people defended the illicit relationship, and others opposed it. It also created a rift between parents and teenagers. Emotions ran deep. In an effort to hold the church together and to keep things moving forward, my wife volunteered to fill in as temporary secretary.

Six families called a meeting with the elders and accused us of "trying to take over the church." Our motives were misjudged. To make matters worse, the plaintiffs met with the elders the very night my wife and I flew to Taiwan, where I was scheduled to teach Chinese preachers for a month. Malicious gossip circulated while we were gone. After our return, we decided to kill our accusers with kindness. Within a year, they were among our best friends. They still are.

The pain my family and I experienced during that trying time made me appreciate the importance of what Jesus says about judging others.

Listen to the Words of Jesus.

Jesus said, "Do not judge, or you will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank 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).

"Do Not Judge…"

"Do not judge, or you will be judged." These words are well-known and often quoted. They are also often misunderstood. People say, "Don't judge me!" Then, they quote the words of Jesus to defend themselves against criticism.

We live in a permissive age when it is politically incorrect to say anything derogatory about another person's lifestyle. People say, "Don't tell me what is right and wrong. You have no right to judge me."

Banning all moral standards results in treating good and evil alike. Without moral standards, Hitler was no better or worse than Mother Teresa.

Charles Quarles comments that Jesus' words "are typically used to argue that no one is qualified to comment on whether another person's actions are right or wrong, even if that person's behavior is clearly condemned in the Scriptures." Then, Quarles gives evidence from the textual grammar in Jesus' teachings that this interpretation of Matthew 7:1 is "clearly mistaken."

When Jesus says, "Do not judge," he is not asking us to turn a blind eye to evil. That would be to contradict everything he has said thus far in his Sermon on the Mount. Our judgment is limited to affirming the judgment of God.

John Stott reminds us that Matthew 7:1 "is followed almost immediately by two further commands: to avoid giving 'what is holy' to dogs or pearls to pigs (6) and to beware of false prophets (15). It would be impossible to obey either of these commands without using our critical judgment. For in order to determine our behavior toward 'dogs,' 'pigs,' and 'false prophets,' we must first be able to recognize them, and in order to do that, we must exercise some critical discernment." Jesus expects us to use our powers of discernment.

Righteous Judgment

What did Jesus mean when he said, "Do not judge, or you will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

Jesus was saying, "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment" (John 7:24, NASV). He was urging us not to judge people's motives, but to be kind, generous, and merciful in our judgments. We are to give people the benefit of the doubt if there is any question about their intentions. Jesus is saying, in effect, "Always place the best possible construction on everything people say and do."

Only God is qualified to judge the thoughts and intents of the heart. As William Barclay has said, "We never know the whole facts or the whole person. … There is hardly anyone who has not been guilty of some grave misjudgment; there is hardly anyone who has not suffered from someone else's misjudgment. And yet the strange fact is that there is hardly any commandment of Jesus which is more consistently broken and neglected." It is not our right to condemn.

When a person is irritable, testy, or verbally abusive, we don't know why. That person may have been scarred by abusive parents, betrayed by an unfaithful spouse, or cheated by a dishonest business partner. If we knew the emotional burdens people bear, we might be more sympathetic and charitable in our judgment. I vividly recall one of my college professors saying, "Be patient with the man you meet. He may be carrying a heavy load." Another professor got my attention when he said, "There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it hardly behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us." Those tidbits of wisdom have helped shape my thinking.

The Law of Reciprocity

People usually judge us the way we judge them. However, Jesus seems to have the judgment of God in mind when he says, "For in the manner you judge others, you will be judged." In the Beatitudes, Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy" (Matthew 5:7). Jesus also said, "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father will not forgive your sins" (Matthew 6:14-15). If we are merciful and forgiving toward others, our heavenly Father will extend mercy and forgiveness to us–both now and on the day of judgment. But if we are unmerciful and unforgiving, God will judge us as we have judged others. God will judge the judges.

God Is the Final Judge

When Christians in Rome were judging one another, Paul asked, "Who are you to judge someone else's servant?" (Romans 14:4). In other words, what gave you the right to judge the servants of God? Paul asked again, "Why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat" (Romans 14:10).

God knows everything about us. He knows our struggles. He knows our motives. He also knows about the struggles and motives of others. Instead of looking for faults in other people, we should look at our own faults and realize that we, ourselves, will be judged (Matthew 12:36; Romans 14:12).

A Speck in Your Brother's Eye

Jesus continues, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3). In the gospel of Matthew, the term "brother" generally refers to followers of Christ. If that is the case here, this section of the Sermon deals with relationships within the family of God, not with relationships between believers and unbelievers. Paul confirms this in his letter to the church in Corinth.

A brother in Corinth was having sexual relations with his father's wife, and the church was ignoring it. The Corinthian church was even boasting about its tolerance. The apostle Paul rebuked the church, saying, "I have already passed judgment on the one who did this" (1 Corinthians 5:3). "Hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord" (verse 5).

Church discipline was administered not to punish the offender but to save him or her on the day of judgment. Finally, Paul said it was not his business to judge people outside the church. "God will judge those outside" (1 Corinthians 5:13).

The word for "speck" (karphos) means a tiny piece of chaff, sawdust, or straw. Jesus used this word to symbolize a relatively insignificant sin. Of course, any sin needs to be removed.

Inspired by the Spirit of God, Paul wrote, "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough" (1 Corinthians 5:6). By that, he meant that a little sin infects the whole church. Paul said, "Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast" (verse 7).

It is the job of the church to discipline itself, but discipline must be administered with a gentle, loving spirit. To the church in Galatia, Paul wrote, "Brethren, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted" (Galatians 6:1).

Removing a small piece of straw from a person's eye is a delicate operation that often requires the skill of an ophthalmologist. I was mowing the grass in my backyard without goggles one day, and a small piece of straw flew up from the mower and penetrated my right eyeball. I tried to remove the straw, but the more I tried, the more inflamed my eye became. Finally, I went to my ophthalmologist, and he carefully removed the straw from my eye with a pair of tweezers and prescribed eye drops to heal the wound.

Removing sin from a brother also requires skill, humility, love, and a gentle touch. Insensitive confrontation only drives a brother or sister farther away from God.

A Plank in Your Eye

The word translated "plank" (dokos) refers to a log or a large piece of lumber used for barring a door or for constructing the roof of a house. Jesus used this word to represent heinous sins that inflict pain, suffering, and sorrow on others.

The vivid word picture that Jesus paints is hilarious. In our mind, we see a man who is concerned about a tiny speck of sawdust in his brother's eye but is oblivious to the huge beam that is protruding from his own eye. With a little imagination, we see the man with a plank in his eye trying to take a speck out of his brother's eye, swatting his brother with the plank every time he turns his head in an effort to get a good look at the speck.

Jesus uses this colorful analogy to illustrate how foolish it is for a man blinded by his own sins to be concerned about removing a brother's minor sin. A blind ophthalmologist is an oxymoron.

"You Hypocrite."

If we are in the habit of condemning our brother's sins while ignoring our own, Jesus would say to us, "You hypocrite. First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:5).

Earlier in his Sermon, Jesus described a hypocrite as someone who performs "deeds of righteousness" in order to be seen and admired by men. Here he describes a hypocrite as someone who is blind to his own sins while judging the sins of others. As Charles Quarles says, the hypocrite "is devoted to inspection without introspection."

David lusted after Bathsheba called for her, seduced her, impregnated her, and had her husband killed to cover up his sin. Then, he married Bathsheba and lived as if nothing had happened.

God sent the prophet Nathan to tear the scales from David's eyes. Nathan told David a story about a poor man who had only one little lamb and a rich man who had flocks of sheep. When a traveler came, the rich man took the poor man's little lamb, killed it, and fed it to his guest. When David heard this, he flew into a rage and said, "The man who did this deserves to die!" Nathan said to David, "You are the man" (2 Samuel 12:1-7).

When David recognized his sin, he repented. When he confessed his sins, God forgave him. After he repented and was forgiven, David wrote some of his greatest Psalms.

John says, "If we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Once we recognize our own sin and experience God's grace, mercy, and forgiveness, we will always be more gracious, merciful, and forgiving toward others.