Drop Your Stone: Matthew 7

Hey y'all, happy 2020! I am still a little in shock that it is actually here. The decade of my teenage years is now gone, which is a little sad but mainly exciting. I am so ready to move on from this past decade and jump into the decade of my 20s!

I decided that I would start out the new year by reading through the Gospels. You can never really study them and re-read them too much. I feel like every time I re-read Scripture that I've seemed to have read 10,000 times before, God introduces something new to me that I had never noticed.

So yesterday my reading ended up being in Matthew 7. Again, this is a chapter I've definitely read before but I still seemed to find so much fresh truth reading through it yesterday. It's Jesus speaking here, and His words make me realize that the social problems occurring back in the Old Testament actually aren't too different from our problems today. The chapter starts out with Jesus speaking about not judging others. Here are His words:

Matthew 7:1-5 "Do not judge, so that you won't be judged. For with the judgement you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck in your brothers eye but don't notice the log in your own eye? Or how you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and look, there's a log in your eye? Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."

Ok, I know, that's a lot of information. So let's break it down.

Verse 1: "Do not judge, so that you won't be judged." Fairly self explanatory. When you judge someone else, someone else is going to judge you. The world may refer to this as something called "karma." But really, the God of the universe is the ultimate judge and He says "Revenge is mine," (Romans 12:19) and when he sees someone judging others, He might not stop someone from judging them later on. You reap what you sow. What you put into the world, will come back around to you.

Verse 2: "For with the judgement you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." A continuation of the last verse.

Verse 3: "Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but don't notice the log in your own eye?" Jesus is using a metaphor here to give a visual scenario of the things that we do inside of our own minds. If you are new to studying Scripture, you will soon see that the more you read, the more metaphors you will find. Jesus loves metaphors! Basically what He is asking us is why do you pick at others and point out their flaws when there are flaws in your life?

Verse 4: "Or how you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and look, there's a log in your eye?" Jesus is telling us here how we will also say to our friends, "Let me help you fix all of these problems you have," and point out all of their issues, when we have issues of our own! He's asking, why would we do this to one another?

Verse 5: "Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." This verse actually makes me smile, because I was just discussing this type of thing with my small group last week. The Bible is real, y'all. Jesus' words to us are real, and Jesus is not afraid to tell us the truth, or, as I said to my small group, "Tell it like it is." He calls us out sometimes, and sometimes we need to be called out when we are hurting others and hurting ourselves. He doesn't beat around the bush in this verse, he says, you're a hypocrite! Don't try to call people out on their issues when you have issues of your own. Ask God to help you fix yourself first before you go around trying to help others be fixed.

Then it goes into verse six which is really quite confusing initially but I actually went to my mom about this verse and she explained to me what it meant! It's another metaphor, but it's a bit unrelated to the topic we're focusing on here. The meaning behind it is some great truth, though, so if you're interested in me writing another blog post about this chapter of Matthew, please let me know by leaving a comment!

I love this passage so much because it's a great example of how Jesus' words are still relevant today. Y'all… we are still dealing with the same problems that they had to deal with in Biblical days! People have been "judgy" literally forever. No wonder Jesus is asking us "Why are you doing this?" in these verses. When are we going to learn to stop judging others before evaluating ourselves?

Drop your stone! Who are we, the imperfect ones, to judge others? Why is it that we can see the flaws in others and not in ourselves? Lately I've been a big fan of the idea of staying in our own "circle of sanctification" that we should be unjudging toward others. Maybe if we just stay inside our own world of growing in Christ and be blameless before Him, then we won't be looking for other's specks.

So, with all of this being said, Matthew 7 has really made me want to add a new resolution to my new year's resolution list: judge less! When we live our lives judging everyone else for what they're doing, then how can we ever better ourselves? Don't get me wrong... spreading truth and sharing the Gospel is what we were put here for! But there is such a difference in sharing God's Word in love rather than in judgement. Let the Almighty God do the judging, and pursue loving others more than you ever have this year. I'll be doing it with you!

God bless,

Caroline Elisabeth