Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
In a lot of ways the connecting link to Christ's teachings in Matthew Chapter 7 is relationships. Jesus deals with our relationship to our fellow man; as Christianity was never intended to be an isolated, individual experience. His Kingdom is a community affair; dealing with the network of relationships into which Christians are drawn. In the above text, Christ in condemning harsh and error judgement, gives a picture of someone with a plank in his eye trying to extract a speck of dust from some other person's eye. A brother in whose eye we see a splinter, is one whom we have a responsibility to help, not judge. Have you ever tried to take a piece of grit from someone's eye? It's quite a tricky operation; you need to be gentle and very careful.
Have you ever had a piece of grit in your eye and see how it waters? Can you imagine how you could take a bit of grit from someone else's eye when your own eye is streaming with water? We do not have to be the judge and hypocrite; but rather be a brother or a sister who cares so much that we look at ourselves first to see if we are fit to do so. Jesus doesn't forbid us from judging others; but to approach one another in love. Before we judge others we must judge ourselves. So many times judgement is self-righteous and loveless. It becomes the practise of ill-natured criticism or hasty and half formed opinions; malicious whispers or cruel sneers. As Christians we can be objective critics in assessing what people do; but we do not have to be judges in the sense of judging harshly or being fault finders who are negative and destructive toward others.
Jesus in the below passages gave the golden rule which should guide our attitude and behaviour to others.
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
In other words, do unto others what you would have them do to you. William Barclay says “this is the top most peak of social ethics and the 'everest' of all ethical teaching.
Some people look at this in a negative way and say “What is hateful to yourself do to no other”. This negative statement involves the rule not to do certain things to others what you don't want to be done to you. It's never very difficult 'not to' do things. We might go about our daily lives not injuring anyone and keeping the law of the land, but still not be accepted by God and not be of any benefit to society.
But when the rule is applied positively, that is when we must actively do to others what we would have them do to us, then a new principle enters into our lives; and a new attitude to our fellow man. It's one thing to say I must not injure people because I do not want to be injured; but it is quite another thing to say I must go out of my way to help others and to be kind to them.
It's not very difficult to stop hurting and injuring people. It's more difficult to make a conscious decision to go out of our way to be kind to them as we would wish them to be to us. We are to be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful. This world will be a better place to live if we all can subject our words, thoughts and actions to other, to the 'golden rule test' am I doing unto others what I want them to do to me?
