Matthew 7:1-6 (ESV)
1 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
6 “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.
Day 1: Loving God
Reflect:
Luke 6:37 parallels this passage in Matthew, and there, it says, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” That last clause, “forgive, and you will be forgiven” echoes Matthew 6:14, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” It’s referring to God’s forgiveness, not man’s forgiveness. Based on this parallel, I think we should interpret the judgment of Matthew 7:1-2 as also referring to God’s judgment, not man’s judgment. “Judge not, that you be not judged [by God]. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged [by God], and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
This is similar to James 2:13, which says, “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment,” and to the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18:21-35. We had sinned against God in far more grievous ways than other people have ever sinned against us. Our debt of sin to God, according to that parable, is in the order of magnitude of billions, a figurative $7.2 billion, but our brothers and sisters’ sins debt of sin toward us, is in the order of magnitude of thousands. But if God has been so merciful to forgive us our billions, would we not also, gladly, forgive our fellow Christians the thousands? Forgiven people forgive. Those who have received mercy, show mercy.
When Jesus first came as the Messiah, the Jews expected judgment of the wicked, fire and brimstone, sword and conquest, but instead, Jesus said in John 3:17, “… God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Jesus did not come to crush the rebels but to rescue them and reconcile them to God the Father. Instead of sitting in judgment over us, the Son of God, the King of kings subjected Himself to the humiliation of sitting under the judgment of men (Matt. 27:19). This sinful world condemned Jesus, the righteous one, the sinless one, to death by crucifixion. But all of this was according to God’s sovereign plan. In our place, condemned He stood, so that in His place, justified we stand! This is why Jesus says in John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” Beloved child of God, you will not come into the judgment of condemnation and punishment, for you have “passed from death to life”! It is this mercy of God that transforms us to be able to bring constructive critique and loving correction to one another without contempt or condemnation.
Recommended Song: “Grace and Peace” by Sovereign Grace Music (Find it on our church’s Spotify playlist, “Trinity Hymnal,” at http://bit.do/trinityhymnal)
Pray:
- Pray that you might grasp what fearful judgment you have been saved from by Jesus, and that you may “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19).
- Confess how you have engaged in hypercritical, hubristic, and/or hypocritical judgment of others, and ask God to make you humble and merciful.
- Ask God to help you forgive those whom you are struggling forgiving.
Day 2: Loving One Another
Reflect:
Imagine a person with a big log sticking out of his eye, straining that eye to see and remove a tiny speck from another person’s eye! It’s ludicrous. Not only is it impossible for the person with a log stuck in his eye to see clearly, it’s ridiculous that he is trying to help someone else remove a speck from his eye, when he himself has a much bigger, more urgent problem himself.
As sinners, we tend to think that we see the specks in others’ eyes very well, but we “do not notice the log that is in [our] own eye.” Jesus doesn’t accuse us of seeing the log in our eyes and ignoring it, no, He says that we “do not notice the log that is in [our] own eye.” This is a vivid illustration of the spiritual blindness caused by pride. The log of sin distorts our vision, and we live in a world of funhouse mirrors or carnival mirrors, that distort and exaggerate certain features of people’s faces. We see a speck in someone else, and it looks like a ten-foot pole, while the log in our eye looks like barely a dot.
Recommended Song: “Judge of the Secrets” by Sovereign Grace Music (Find it on our church’s Spotify playlist, “Trinity Hymnal,” at http://bit.do/trinityhymnal)
Pray:
- Pray that God would give our church members broken hearts and contrite spirits that see our own logs clearly.
- Pray that there would be a culture of confession and forgiveness in our church.
- Pray that our church members would grow in courage and conviction, as well as humility and gentleness, so that we can speak the truth in love to one another.
- Pray that we would be our “brother’s keeper” (Gen. 4:9) and “bear one another’s burdens” by “restor[ing]” those who are “caught in … transgression” “in a spirit of gentleness” (Gal. 6:1).
Day 3: Sharing the Love of Christ with Others
Reflect:
Verse 6, “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” When the Bible mentions “dogs,” you should not think of cute, pet Corgis and Pomeranians. That would be anachronistic. Dogs back in the day, and still in many parts of the world, are wild, disgusting scavengers. They are symbols, not of insiders, pets that live in your home, but of outsiders, scavengers that live on the street. For this reason, evildoers are sometimes describe figuratively as “dogs” (2 Sam. 16:9; Ps. 22:16). It was the unflattering term that Jews sometimes used to refer to Gentile unbelievers (cf. Phil. 3:2). Speaking of those who are excluded from the new Heavenly Jerusalem, it says in Revelation 22:15, “Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”
“Pigs,” as you may have guessed, is not a complimentary term. According to Old Testament ceremonial law, pigs were considered unclean animals, unfit for consumption or sacrifice (Lev. 11:7; Deut. 14:8; Isa. 65:4; 66:3, 17). That’s why you only encounter pigs in the Gospels when Jesus goes to Gentile regions, for example in Matthew 8:30-32, when Jesus goes to the “country of the Gadarenes” (cf. Mark 5:11-16; Luke 8:32-33).
Because of these associations, the “dogs” and “pigs” here refer to unbelievers. Those who have rejected Christ. Those who are incapable of receiving the precious pearls of God’s holy truth and wisdom. Jesus is here qualifying what He said earlier. We should remove the logs from our eyes so that we can remove the specks from our brother’s eyes, but when it comes to those who are not our brothers and sisters in Christ, it is not our responsibility to try to do so. Why? Because they lack the spiritual capacity to receive the truths of God that we bring to them, “lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you” (Matt. 7:6).
Recommended Song: “Only Jesus” by Sovereign Grace Music (Find it on our church’s Spotify playlist, “Trinity Hymnal,” at http://bit.do/trinityhymnal)
Pray:
- Pray that we would have wisdom not to throw our pearls to pigs, and refrain from having a moralistic posture toward the unbelieving world that does not know how to receive the pearls of divine truth and wisdom.
- Pray that, instead of expecting non-Christians to behave like Christians, we would share the good news of Jesus Christ with them and call them to repentance and faith first.
- Ask God to make us a church that shares the gospel with our unbelieving friends and neighbors every week.
