MATTHEW 7:1-6
WE ARE NOT SPECK INSPECTORS
Judging Others (Luke 6:37–42; Romans 14:1–12)
Matthew 7:1-2 “Do not judge, or you will be judged. For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
SUSAN: We should not judge people hypocritically, but we are to evaluate a person’s fruit as we will see in Matthew 7:16, 20. If we judge people harshly, we will be judged harshly. We should never beat somebody down. If a brother or sister needs correction, it should be done gently. However, on things that are not clearly wrong, we need to remember that our way does not necessarily have to be everyone’s way. We are not privy to the motivations of a person’s heart. Only God sees the heart.
Exhortation must come from a position of love and humility rather than hypocritical pride.
Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary: Matthew 1-15, Charles R. Swindoll
These verses have really been misunderstood. To judge can mean “to decide, to distinguish, to condemn, to avenge,” and it actually can mean “to damn.” These verses do not mean that a child of God is forbidden to judge others, but it does mean that we are not to judge the inward motives of others in the sense of condemning them. We do not know or understand why a brother in Christ does a certain thing. We see only outward acts. God doesn’t forbid our judging wrong and evil actions, as we will see. The point is that if you are harsh in your judgments of others, you will be known as the type of person who is severe in his considerations of others. I know this type of person, and I am sure you do, also. Perhaps somebody has said to you, “Don’t pay any attention to what he says; he never has a good word to say.” You see, he is being judged by the way he judges. This is what our Lord is saying in these verses.
Through the Bible with J. Vernon McGee
Romans 14:1-4 1 Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on his opinions. For one person has faith to eat all things, while another, who is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not belittle the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
SUSIE: It is not our place to judge another servant of God. That responsibility lies with the person’s Master, the heavenly Father. I love the last part of this passage because if we are servants of the Most-High God, He will forgive our sins, and enable us to stand before Him clean. Jesus died to redeem us from sin and to clothe us with His own righteousness.
SUSAN: Our ability to stand before God was made possible because of Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross, taking our place even though He was sinless.
SUSIE: Next, Jesus addresses why we are not qualified to judge.
Matthew 7:3-6 Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
SUSAN: We fail to look in the mirror and see our own faults, but we think we can see and pinpoint the flaws of others as if we were human microscopes.
SUSIE: Meanwhile we continue to walk around with obvious sin in our lives, a log in comparison to their microscopic speck. In fact, we read that the comparison Jesus used was a splinter versus a beam that would hold up the ceiling! We must first evaluate ourselves, confess our sin, and allow the Lord to cleanse us before we can address anything with others.
SUSAN: That is the progression that a Christ-follower should employ, but very often we do not.