We should be humble, cautious and sympathetic when we make judgments. And then those judgments should never be based on one’s own authority opinion or interest, but solely on God’s authority—the only infallible judgment of faith and practice.

Matthew 7:2-6

“What did Jesus mean by Judge not? In a word, ‘always-finding fault.’ The follower of Jesus is still a ‘critic’ in the sense of using his powers of discernment, but not a ‘judge’ in the sense of being judgmental. Being judgmental is a compound sin consisting of several unpleasant ingredients. It does not mean to assess people critically, but to judge them harshly. The judgmental critic is a fault-finder who is negative and destructive towards other people and enjoys actively seeking out their failings. He puts the worst possible construction on their motives, pours cold water on their schemes and is ungenerous towards their mistakes.” The person rebuked by Jesus in this passage seldom says anything good about many others. Faults are easily spotted, but credit is seldom given by the person who is sinfully judgmental.

What is forbidden is a self-righteous spirit that is rooted in a feeling of superiority. We must avoid being hyper-critical and derogatory, always picking out negative shortcomings and inferiority. We are not to delight in criticizing others because of our own selfishness.

Jesus confronts our selfishness here, as it manifests itself in the attempt to ply one-ups-manship by criticizing others. Stop for a minute. Do we criticize others in the same manner as we critique ourselves? Can we say I’m not expecting anything of you that I myself won’t do? Or do we allow an easy standard for ourselves while demanding rigorous measures for others? If we do then we’re guilty of Jesus’ teaching here. One way to test your attitude is to read 1 Cor. 13 and see if that describes our expectation toward others or do we rejoice in wrong? Do we hope for the worst and never trust? If we do not act this love out then we’re probably rebuked by Jesus here as being hypercritical.

In some ways, Jesus is saying what a good commanding officer says: I never expect you to do something I will not do myself. You are not held to a double standard.

The following are indications that we have a hyper-critical attitude:

• Consistently ready to give a judgment when the matter is none of our business.
• Puts prejudice/favoritism in place of principle.
• Tendency to focus on personalities rather than principles or issues.
• Habitually express our opinions without a knowledge of the pertinent facts.
• Never take the trouble to understand the circumstance and never ready to excuse or exercise mercy.
• Seeks to pronounce a final judgment on a person without distinguishing an occasional sin from a habitual pattern.

If his teaching weren’t clear enough, if it weren’t convicting enough, Jesus then goes on to give us a comically absurd example.

1. In vss 3-5 Jesus gives us his famous and revealing little parable illustrating how not to judge. It could be renamed “Meddling with others’ peccadilloes, while failing to acknowledge our own faults.” Was there ever such sarcasm and irony as this?
2. First he draws the absurd picture by asking two rhetorical questions.
3. verse 3 “Why do you notice the speck in your brother’s eye”?
4. verse 4 “How can you say . . . ?”

In this mini-parable, splinter = small sin and beam= great collection of sin.

“The picture of somebody struggling with the delicate operation of removing a speck of dirt from a friend’s eye, while a vast plank in his own eye entirely obscures his vision, is ludicrous in the extreme. Yet when the caricature is transferred to ourselves and our ridiculous fault-finding, we do not always appreciate the joke. We have a fatal tendency to exaggerate the faults of others and minimize the gravity of our own. We seem to find it impossible, when comparing ourselves with others, to be strictly objective and impartial. On the contrary, we have a rosy view of ourselves and a jaundiced view of others.”

Jesus rebukes “one who is quick to detect the minor faults of others while being unconcerned about his own sins.” (Pink) This person fixes his gaze on the small faults of others while overlooking all good in them, while, he, himself has glaring deficiencies. There is something ridiculous about the blind leading the blind, but even more ridiculous is a blind ophthalmologist! Imagine walking into your eye doctor’s office one morning for a routine check up, and he stumbles in with a patch on one eye and is blind in the other. Feeling his way around the room, bumping into furniture, he smiles and offers pleasant conversation, but he cannot see to fix your eyes. Will you stay in his chair? Such a person is called a hypocrite (v. 5) a play actor, and is accused of the same mentality as one who prays loud vain prayers or gives alms for public honor for positive action.

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