Bible Study series: Matthew 7:1-6. This must be read in context. And be sure not to throw priceless things before swine or holy things before dogs.
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In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Matthew 7:1-6
1 Do not judge, so that you are not judged, 2 for the judgment by which you judge, you shall be judged, and the measure by which you measure, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye and don’t perceive the beam in your own eye? 4 Or how will you say to your brother, “Let me take out the speck from your eye,” and look! there’s a beam in your eye? 5 Hypocrite! First take out the beam from your eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out your brother’s eye.
6 Don’t give what is holy to the dogs, neither toss your pearls before pigs, in case they trample them underfoot and turn and tear you in pieces. (Matthew 7:1-6)
Comments
Kingdom citizens can judge the fruit of the tree, but not the root. God alone can judge both the fruit and the root. Keep to you own jurisdiction and do not cross the line.
The Sermon on the Mount is related to Jeremiah 31:33, which says that in the New Covenant, which will be better than the covenant he made with his people at Sinai (Jer. 31:32), the law is written on the heart:
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people. (Jer. 31:33)
So the heart matters in in the New Covenant, and Jesus goes right to the heart of the matter.
1:
The whole context is condemning from a superior, yet self-deceived stance. Jesus will go next into hypocritical judgment with the speck and beam hyperbole. So “judge” could be just as easily translated as “condemn” (Olmstead, pp. 140-41). Alternative translations: “Do not condemn so that you will not be condemned.” Or “Do not judge so that you will not be condemned.” Yes, the same Greek word is used in this short verse, but once again a superior and self-deceived judgment is in view. The judge has a beam in his eye. Consider our saying today: “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
“you shall be judged”: this is in the passive voice, so Bible interpreters say that this is the divine passive, which means an understated way that God is behind the scenes judging the self-appointed judge. Some commentators say that this verse teaches that God will judge finally and conclusively on the last day (Keener, p. 240; Osborne, comment on 7:1).
This verse is not talking about inspecting and recognizing healthy and rotten fruit (7:15-20). This verse is not about evaluating someone at work when you are the supervisor. This verse is not talking about evaluating your students’ essays, if you are a teacher. It is not about sizing up what your kids did wrong, now that both are crying and accusing each other. We make neutral (and sometimes painful and sometimes positive) judgments / evaluations all the time, and God expects us to do that, when it is our responsibility. Jesus is about to teach not to throw pearls before swine or holy things to dogs (v. 6). However, making judgments and issuing condemnation on people who are not in our jurisdiction is to go down the wrong path.
And for sure we kingdom citizens should not require the state to abolish the legal system. That would be ridiculous.
A Misunderstood Biblical Command: “Don’t Judge!”
“What is forbidden is rigid, censorious judgmentalism that scrutinizes others without even a glance at oneself (7:3; cf. Ps. 18:25-26; Rom. 2:1; 14:10; 1 Cor. 5:12; Jas. 4:11-12; 5:9). Such draconian standard will return to haunt the one who condemns others by it (Matt. 7:2; cf. 5:43-47; 6:14-15; 18:12-20, 32-35; cf. 2 Sam. 12:1-15 …) Jesus teaches that honest introspection is absolutely necessary for clear discernment and just moral judgments. Christian interpersonal judgments must be constructive, not retributive, since Jesus’s disciples will not demand an eye for an eye and will love their enemies (Matt. 5:38-48; 18:15-20; cf. Gal. 6:1)” (Turner on 7:1).
2:
Jesus piles on the same “judge” root in Greek, but in context the verse could be translated: “for the standard by which you judge, you shall be condemned” (emphasis added); or “for the standard by which you condemn, you shall be condemned” (emphasis added). And so it goes with measuring people or sizing them up.
The point to these two verses is not to judge people by putting them in permanent categories and shut the prison door. The “judge” words are found most often in a legal context and a divine context. In a legal context, earthly judges are trained to judge crimes and disputes. In the divine context, God is the only one who can judge every molecule in the soul of the whole person from beginning to end, throughout the human’s life, and pass final sentence, with the utmost and perfect accuracy. We cannot—are unable—to do this, because in the next three verses we have a beam in our eyes. Therefore, you have no right to become accuser, tryer of facts, the judge who renders the verdict and passes sentence, and then the jailer.
Here’s Luke’s expanded version, which confirms my interpretation: “Further, don’t judge, and you will not be judged. And don’t condemn, and you will not be condemned. (Luke 6:37). To judge and condemn in Jesus’s teaching here in different contexts are synonyms.
3-5:
“brothers”: could be translated as “brothers and sisters,” for the Greek in this context is generic and inclusive.
Jesus now launches into hyperbole (pronounced hy-PER-bo-lee). Recall that this is a rhetorical strategy to get the point across in a startling way. It is extravagant exaggeration done in such a clear way that everyone recognizes it cannot be literally true. Up-to-date example: “The ice cream guy is very generous! He piled on the ice cream a mile high on my cone!” Everyone knows that this cannot be literally true. A beam cannot really stick out of a man’s eye. But the imagery is startling and even humorous.
The goal here is to throw a glass of cold water in a hypocrite’s face, spiritually speaking, and to help him to see the truth. It is this context that leads scholars to translate the “judge” verbs (and noun) as “condemn.” It is judgment from a self-deceived and falsely superior vantage point. The self-appointed judge cannot really stand astride the situation and look down from his perch on people, with clarity. He thinks he can, but he is wrong. If he does, his judgment will boomerang right back to him. I have heard it said that it is easy to go astray, but much harder to convince someone to leave the path of error. This wise statement leads to the next key word.
“hypocrite”: originally it comes from the Greek play actor on the stage. They wore masks and played roles. There were stock characters, such as the buffoon, the bombastic soldier, or the old miser. The Septuagint (pronounced sep-TOO-ah-gent and abbreviated LXX for the “seventy” scholars who worked on it) is a third to second century translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. It uses the term hypocrite to mean the godless. However, in Matthew’s Gospel (it is used only once in Mark 7:6 and three times in Luke 6:42; 12:56; 13:15), it is more nuanced. Hypocrites appeared one way, but in reality they were different. They appeared outwardly religious, but inwardly they were full of dead men’s bones (Matt. 23:27). They wore religious masks. They actually did many things that the law required, but they failed to understand God’s view of righteousness. They were more self-deceived than deceivers, though in Matt. 23, Jesus denounced the Pharisees and experts in the law for teaching one thing but living another. They are religious show-offs who act out their righteousness to impress others but are out of touch with God’s mercy and love. Eccl. 7:16 says not to be overly righteous, but that is what they were and displayed it publicly. Here is this verse, kingdom citizens can become hypocritical. A bad place to be.
Please note that Jesus does say we can indeed take the speck out of our brother’s or sister’s eye. So a certain measure of judgment has to be allowed in order to see the speck. The conversation can work out like this:
“Oh dear brother! I have a speck in my eye! Can you help me get it out!”
“I can, because God gave me the grace to pull out of my eye a gigantic flaw. I can sympathize with you.” Only then can you see clearly enough to help your brother.
“It is obvious here that once you have dealt with your problems, you will have ‘clear’ sight to help others with their difficulties” (Osborne’s comment on 7:5).
So Jesus did not say not to judge, period. He offers the reason to be careful about judging. Here it is: because or for you too will be judged by your own judgment. So if you judge harshly and wrongly, then expect to be judged harshly and wrongly in return. If you judge correctly (your employee really did something wrong), then expect to be judged correctly. If you judge wisely and fairly, then expect to be judged wisely and fairly. And remember the divine passive. God will be the one judging you, and you can trust him to judge you correctly, wisely, and fairly. And his judgment does not have to negative. He can judge you to be righteous before humankind and commend you. He will vindicate you before others, because you really did act justly and righteously before others.
Psalm 26:1:
Vindicate me, Lord, for I have led a blameless life; I have trusted in the Lord and have not faltered. (Psalm 26:1, NIV)
Ps. 35:24:
Vindicate me in your righteousness, Lord my God; do not let them gloat over me. (Ps. 35:24)
Psalm 43:1:
Vindicate me, my God, and plead my cause against an unfaithful nation. Rescue me from those who are deceitful and wicked. (Ps. 43:1, NIV)
Psalm 138:8:
The Lord will vindicate me; your love, Lord, endures forever— do not abandon the works of your hands. (Ps. 138:8, NIV)
God loves to support his servants who walk uprightly. He will cause you to win, when you follow him and are dealt with unjust in the business world, for example. Let God take revenge on those who persecute you without cause.
Jesus said: “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with a righteous judgment” (John 7:24). So we can judge within our jurisdiction, not superficially, but at the fruit. As noted, don’t go near the root.
6:
Turner titles this verse: Warning against Naivete.
Now the judgment goes in another direction. You rightly discern (a form of judging) that the snickering skeptic does not want to have a nuanced dialogue. But he keeps egging you on. He cackles and won’t leave behind his clunky and shallow reading of a difficult Scripture or concepts. You carry on the dialog with him, for a long or short time, and you realize it is time to move on. This is especially true with “comments debates” in social media. They can go on and on, but they become endless and fruitless. The commenter will never (or rarely) bow the knee to the Lordship of Christ in a comments debate.
Once again, the image of holy things before dogs and the pearls before swine or pigs is hyperbole. No one is supposed to take it literally. No one actually throws pearls before swine, and no one actually takes a Torah scroll or the tools in the temple and places them before dogs. Let’s not read too much into the imagery of dogs and pigs. Jesus is not lining up all the features of those two animals and claiming that humans are identical to them in every way. This is a startling image—often used by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
With that said, however, Peter also has a tough image of humans and dogs and pigs. Dogs return to their own vomit, and pigs go back and wallow in mud (2 Pet. 2:22). Some humans do the same. Ouch. It’s best not to call your sneering skeptical friend a dog or pig to his face but realize—privately—that you are dealing with someone who cannot get enough wisdom to see his way through the tough issues of life and Scripture. You may certainly pray for him if you know him personally, and you can carry on the dialogue as long as he allows it, face to face. God may reach him.
Jesus’s statement is a general warning, and generalizations always have individual exceptions built into them.
France: “perhaps we can be no more definite than to say that disciples are to be discriminating in sharing ‘sacred things’ of the gospel and the treasure of their Father in heaven so as not to lay them open to abuse, but to avoid offering a more specific identification of who are to be regarded as unsuitable or incapable of receiving them (cf. Paul’s insistence in 1 Cor. 2:13-16 that only the ‘spiritual’ can receive spiritual teaching)” (p. 277).
Keener: “7:6 … does not allow one to prejudge who may receive one’s message (13:3-23), but does forbid one to try to force it on those who show no inclination to accept it (10:13-16)” (p. 244).
Turner: “Jesus’s disciples should be neither inquisitors (Matt. 7:1-5) nor simpletons (7:6). Neither censoriousness nor naivete helps the church … If genuine introspection does not occur, a disciple may blunder on the side of judgmental hypocrisy or naïve gullibility. Ignorance of oneself is often mixed with arrogance towards others” (p. 207).
Osborne: “So the metaphor adds persecution to rejection. The unbeliever will not just fail to respond but will actually oppress the saints (cf. Prov. 9:8; Matt. 10:17-31)” (comment on 7:6).
Blomberg: “Verse 6 seems cryptic and unconnected to the immediate context, but it probably further qualifies the command against judging. One must try to discern whether presenting to others that which is holy will elicit nothing but abuse or profanity. In these instances restraint is required” (comment on v. 6).
GrowApp for Matt. 7:1-6
1. Have you ever set yourself up as judge, jury, and executioner in a situation? If so, how did you stop?
2. Can you think of scenarios in which you are called to evaluate someone’s progress at work or in school? What is the difference between judging someone’s soul permanently and judging their productivity or temporary behavior?
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1. Church Fathers and Matthew’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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