“Do not judge, or you too 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 brothers’ eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” –Matthew 7:1-2
There was a time when my husband, Jeff asked me to go to a restaurant in a small town we were driving through in New Mexico. I was scared to stop, because I was not sure of the neighborhood or the building. We had looked it up on Yelp, and it had great reviews, but it still looked shady and run down. When we walked in I became even more nervous; was this place clean? Was the food edible? Was I going to die from food poisoning? We ordered our food, and when it came it was so amazing, and I did not get sick from it, only very full!!
Every day we encounter people in our lives that we can make judgements about, both good and bad. We are quick to make those judgements, sometimes without asking any questions of ourselves.
I judged the food by the way the building looked the same way we judge people by our perception, or how they have treated us.
What is the true meaning of this verse from Matthew? People are quick to say, “The Bible says, you should not Judge people because God is the only one who can judge!” This verse is more concerned about our hypocrisy. I think Jesus was telling us to be cautious about how we made our judgments. We must first open our eyes to our own actions and the conditions of our heart. It is easy to look around and pass judgment on the actions and conditions of others. Jesus wanted us to be concerned first about our own.
“By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Gabrielle Moon, Executive Director St. Luke’s Children’s Centers
