"Stop Judging"

How easy it is for imperfect humans to point out other people's failings while ignoring their own! This inclination, though, makes us vulnerable to hypocrisy. "Hypocrite!" Jesus said. "First extract the rafter from your own eye, and then you will see clearly how to extract the straw from your brother's eye." We do well to heed counsel: "Stop judging that you may not be judged; for with what judgment you are judging, you will be judged....Why, then, do you look at the straw in your brother's eye, but do not consider the rafter in your own eye?" - Matthew 7:1-5.


When others at times do things that seem hypocritical, we must be careful not to label them hastily as hypocrites. The apostle Peter, for example, "went withdrawing and separating himself" from Gentile fellow believers in Antioch so as to please visitors of Jewish background from Jerusalem. Barnabas 'was also led along with Peter and others in this pretense.' Peter did this despite the fact that he had been privileged to open the way for Gentiles to be admitted to the Christian congregation. (Galatians 2:11-14; Acts 10:24-28, 34) But this slip on the part of Barnabas and Peter surely did not put them in the same category as the scribes and Pharisees or Judah Iscariot.

Next time: "Let Your Love Be Without Hypocrisy"