Luke 6:41-42 And why behold you the mote that is in your brother's eye, but perceive not the beam that is in your own eye?… Morality is not religion, but morality and religion have an organic unity. False religions sever religion and morality. Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount, makes morality grow out of religion. We are to be kind because God is kind; ready to forgive because God is merciful; slow to judge because we have a Judge whose dealings with us will be regulated by our dealings with others. Let us now say something of the caution in the text, reading it in the light of the great truths which we find in the context. I. If a Christian man be thoroughly penetrated with the truth respecting his own relations, and those of other men, to God it is quite certain that JUDGING AND REPROVING OTHERS WILL BE A WORE WHICH, SO FAR AS MAY BE, HE WILL DECLINE. And this for two reasons: 1. Because he doubts his own knowledge of other men; and — 2. Because he doubts the strength of his own sympathy. II. But now, besides these thoughts, there is the most conclusive thought of all — OUR OWN DEMERIT: OUR LYING OPEN OURSELVES TO GOD'S JUDGMENT AND TO MAN'S. The case which the Saviour here points to is not simply that of one judging another, who is himself an evil-doer, but the case of one judging another whose sin is to that of the person he censures as the beam to the mote. When we are wrong-doers ourselves, and when we see our own acts under the colouring lights of self-love; when we review them with the help of all the apologies and extenuations which we are able to devise, and then turn to other persons' acts, all these lights being withdrawn, and criticise them in a clear, cold, and speculative way, or, even worse, under the influence of anger, or jealousy, or prejudice, is it not quite certain that we shall think less of the beam in our own eye than of the mote in our brother's eye? (J. A. Jacob, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? |
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