Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Matthew 7:1-6 "Judge Not"

Read Matthew 7:1-6.

"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?" NIV
Anyone who has studied with me on this blog knows I most often take NIV sections of Scripture. But God did not section out the Bible that way, the New International Version committee did. So even though I am once again looking at a section here, you really need to look at 7:1-7:23 to get the complete picture.

Some would take 7:1-6 and say we should never hold anyone accountable for their sins because we ourselves always have sins that need dealt with as well. And this is true to an extent. But it goes much further than that. That is why for this entry in the "Further Thoughts" section, I am going to quote the NIV study note for verse 7:1. It gives plenty of references to work on to come to a much better understanding of this passage than I could give.

For the time being, however, let's just say that when we do see our brother or sister in sin, if they have a repentant spirit, we need to treat them with the grace that was afforded us by the Lord in our sin. If they are not repentant, we continue to show them love, but they have chosen to not be part of the body. (See 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 and Matthew 18:15-20.)

Our responsibility is to mainly be sure we have our hearts right with the Lord and are living as He would have us to live and sharing His love and His truth with others.

Further Thoughts:
  1. New International Version Study Notes for Matthew 7:1, "The Christian is not to judge hypocritically or self-righteously, as can be seen from the context (v.5). The same thought is expressed in 23:13-29 (cf. Romans 2:1). To obey Christ's commands in this chapter, we must first evaluate a person's character -- whether he is a 'dog' (v.6) or a false prophet (v.15), or whether his life shows fruit (v.16). Scripture repeatedly exhorts believers to evaluate carefully and choose between good and bad people and things (sexually immoral, 1 Corinthians 5:9; those who masquerade as angels of light, 2 Corinthians 11:14; dogs, Philippians 3:2; false prophets, 1 John 4:1). The Christian is to "test everything" (1 Thessalonians 5:21)."

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