My Walk Through the Book of Matthew by Annette Godtland

Do Not Judge (Matthew 7:1-6)

1"Judge not, that you be not judged. 2For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. 3And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

6"Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

It is not our place to judge others. We should not judge. But the interesting part of this instruction from Jesus isn't just that He is saying we should not judge others because it is bad, but we should not judge others for our own good. For we will be judged with the same measure we judge others! The less critical I can be of others, the less critical God will be of me! And when I look at myself, I would like God to be as uncritical as possible!

What does Jesus mean by the speck in your brother's eye? We may see a speck of sin in our brother. Can we ignore it? We all know the magnitude of our own sins. What we know of our sins is as a plank as compared to the speck we see in our brothers. And still we manage to ignore our own sins! If we can live with ourselves, knowing our sins, we should have no difficulty accepting our brothers with their sins. If we worry about anyone's sins, we should worry about our own first.

Jesus said you must first remove the plank from your own eye in order to see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. But everyone is a sinner. It is impossible for us to be without sin. We can remove a lot of our sin, but there will always be some that remains. Jesus knows this. That is why He died for us. So in our lifetime here on earth, we will never be in a state where we can see clearly enough to remove the speck from our brother's eye. However, God has no speck of sin in His eye, He sees everything clearly, He knows all the details, He sees everything that is done in secret, He can remove the speck, He is the only one who can judge our brothers. But note, he can remove the speck, he can remove the sin. How can we possibly judge someone whose sin may be removed? We are best off leaving to God the removal of sins from our brothers as well as all judgments.

Next Jesus said to not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine. A footnote in my Bible says this means that you shouldn't try to preach the gospel to those who manifest a contemptuous blasphemy toward it as this not only cheapens it, but also endangers you. But I have a tough time with this interpretation. First of all, I think the gospel is for everyone, whether they are ready to hear it or not. We should not avoid spreading the gospel for fear that others will trample it or harm us because of it. In Matthew 5:11, Jesus said "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." We should not fear the persecution, but spread the gospel to all. Second, this means making a judgment of who is a dog or swine that is not worthy of hearing the gospel. And this is right after Jesus says to not judge! So I think there must be some other meaning to this text.

First of all, what is holy? When I first read this, I was thinking this meant the many blessings God has given us. But I don't think those things are exactly holy. In the final analysis, I don't think any material things are holy in and of themselves. The only thing I can think of that is truly holy is the word of God. So I guess I can agree with the footnote as far as this text meaning giving or casting the word of God or the gospel.

When Jesus talks of giving things to the dogs, or casting them before swine, I don't think the point is who you are giving them to, but what you are doing with what is precious. Usually what you give to the dogs or swine are the scraps, what is left over after you picked out what you wanted, what you no longer want, or feel you have no need for. Jesus said to not toss out any of what is holy, any of His words. He said not to cast away any pearls (pearls of wisdom?). His words are all precious.

So what will turn on you and tear you to pieces? I don't think Jesus is warning us to worry about the dogs and swine, but about the words that we tossed away. In Matthew 6:14-15, Jesus says, if we do not forgive, we will not be forgiven. In Matthew 6:1-3, Jesus says, we must not judge others for we will be judged by the same measure. If we do not follow these words, they will be turned against us, and we will be destroyed in the end. These are the words that will lead us to salvation or will tear us to pieces.