The Log vs the Speck
By Pastor Aggrey Soyekwo
Matthew 7.3-5 “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? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Jesus was teaching against passing judgment on others. To judge is to form an opinion about someone or something, and conclude it as right or wrong. Such assessments are based on ones’ beliefs, values, desires and character informed by their environment and knowledge acquired over time. Good judgment guides good decisions, and vice versa. Nevertheless, man’s fallen nature makes his view of things unbalanced. Knowledge of God’s word should always guide our judgement of things and others.
Jesus is discouraging passing judgment over others’ weaknesses from a ‘holier-than-thou’ position, while ignoring one’s own fatal weaknesses. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. A plank or a log in one’s eye is a huge fault they posses. The speck is a tiny fault in the others. With these huge weaknesses informing opinions over others, one is not in right position to objectively see and offer meaningful help to another. Whatever help offered in that state will be skewed, not objective, truthful or in love with a view of helping. It’s destructive instead. Neither should this be an excuse for one not to correct others, nor those in the wrong to reject correction based on God’s word.
We are called to correct others in love. Love has with it the humility and not the judgemental approach. It gives the right view of others from God’s perspective. It recognises that we are what we are by God’s grace. What we see and conclude about others, is not how God sees. Only God sees the heart, the motives and intentions why people do things the way they do. To us, some appear evil, yet God sees a genuine person. True judgment is best left to God who knows the true state of peoples hearts. Let’s learn from how Jesus did it:
John 5:30 “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”
John 8:15-16 “You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one.
But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me.”
Shalom children of God.