1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “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? 4 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? 5 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.
6 “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
Read Matthew 7:1-6 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!
In what may be one of Jesus’ most ridiculous comparisons, in the illustration of the plank and the piece of sawdust we find a clear description of the term hypocrite. In this comparison, part of me wonders if some of those in the crowd actually laughed at the mental picture Jesus painted for them.
While preaching the famous “Sermon on the Mount”, Jesus draws our focus onto a big truth using this illustration. Matthew tells us that He challenged the crowd by asking, “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?” (v. 3-4)
Then Jesus hits on the big point for this section of His message. He continues by saying, “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.” (v. 5)
Here we have Jesus clarifying what it means to be a hypocrite. Jesus defines the person who pays more attention to other peoples’ faults than their own as a hypocrite. According to Jesus’ definition, to not be a hypocrite, one must focus more on personal growth than on helping others grow.
But we must be careful to not make the passage say what it doesn’t say. Jesus ends off by saying, “then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (v. 5b)
Helping others grow is important, but more important is that the one doing the teaching has also lived the message they are sharing. A hypocrite is someone who gives advice that they are not following themselves. A hypocrite rationalizes their situation as not needing the advice, but they don’t make any exceptions for others.
To break free from hypocrisy, we must be intentional about sharing our failures and our successes. We must be honest about where we struggle, and what we are doing to overcome these challenges. We must speak from our experience more than from our intelligence. This is one definition for the idea of “sharing our testimony”.
Most of us know what we should be doing, and to really break free from hypocrisy, we must start doing these things. Helping others without being a hypocrite means that we have lived our advice and found it to be beneficial. Only after living our advice can we then help others without being known as a hypocrite.
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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