Category: Bible

How Do I Help My Brother with a Speck In His Eye When I Have a Log In My Own Eye? Judging Rightly

We cannot grow in maturity and holiness if our focus is on the sin of other people. We have a hard enough time recognizing and dealing with our own sin!

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I have written previously about the parable of the log in a person’s eye who sees a speck of saw dust in another person’s eye. (See 8 Important Points about Judging and Judgment) Jesus says that we need to be careful about focusing on the specks in others’ eyes because of the logs in our own eyes. (Matthew 7:1-5)

Jesus is expressly talking about judging others, but the implications are much larger than that. They are about loving others, especially our brothers and sisters in the Lord. It is also about our posture to the world (those who do not know God in Christ, who gave Himself up for us).

We might be tempted to read what Jesus said and walk away thinking that we should not judge other people. That isn’t quite what Jesus says. Jesus says be careful in the way you judge others because the way you judge others is the way you will be judged. (Matt. 7:1-12)

We can’t get away from making judgments, which is nothing more, really, than the conclusions we reach based on what we know. We make judgments about innumerable things every day.

This is also not about Judgment (capital J). Only God has the authority to judge people, and God alone is a true Judge who can weigh all the facts accurately and completely. God alone knows our thoughts and our hearts. We can only judge by appearances, and we judge only from ground level.

When we see a speck in our brother’s eye, the parable should cause us to consider the logs in our own eyes, first. It’s a matter of perspective. What seems like a speck in someone else’s eye appears like a log when that speck is in my eye. Even so, humans have an unusual capacity to get used to those “logs” and forget they even exist.

One point of this parable is that we need to be dealing with our own sin as a matter of first priority. If sin is discovered in our brother, that discovery should cause us to consider first our own sin. I believe this is a fair reading of what Jesus is saying.

Jesus also does not tell us to leave our brother alone with a speck in his eye. Rather, he tells us to be considerate as we determine what to do about. We need to start by considering our own sin sinned (missing the mark) in our own lives. Then we need to approach our brother in the right attitude of heart, with empathy, realizing that we are not any better then our brother who’s speck we have observed.

Today, I have read what Paul says in Galatians 6:1-2 in my daily reading, and the parable about the log and the speck comes rushing back to me. I realize that Paul’s admonition in Galatians 6:1-2 harmonizes with what Jesus was taught his disciples in this parable:

“Brothers and sisters, if a person is discovered in some sin, you who are spiritual restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness. Pay close attention to yourselves, so that you are not tempted too. Carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

Galatians 6:1-2 NET (Emphasis added)

I previously observed that we must be in relationship with others to do what Jesus has said (judge rightly). We should not be approaching anyone about a speck in their eye if we do not do it from the perspective of loving relationship (as brothers and sisters). We have to do this in the right relationship, or we will not do it right.

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A Meditation on Presidential Discourse

Writing for the Church, and not for the public at large…

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“You must not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people.”

Exodus 22:28 NET

These words from Moses were quoted by Paul when he was accused of insulting the high priest, Ananias. (See Acts 23:12-35) Paul had been hauled in front of the high priest when a mob of Asian Jews saw Paul in Jerusalem and sought to kill him for the things he was saying.

The Roman authorities had to employ an army of soldiers to save Paul from the mob, and the Romans gave him his day in court with the Jewish council and high priest. When Paul got a chance to speak, he said, “Brothers, I have lived my life with a clear conscience before God to this day.”

Paul barely spoke the words of introduction before the high priest ordered Paul to be struck on the mouth. Paul responded, saying, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Do you sit there judging me according to law, and in violation of the law you order me to be struck?”

That is when the mob accused him of insulting “God’s high priest”, and Paul acknowledged, “You must not speak evil about a ruler of your people.”

Some commentators have suggested that Paul really didn’t know he was in front of the high priest. When he found out, he apologized immediately.

Other speculate that Paul’s remarks were sarcastic. Maybe this was a backhanded compliment, false deference, a subtle challenge to the high priest’s authority, suggesting that he was not really God’s ruler.

In the Greek, the word translated “know” can also mean appreciate. So perhaps, Paul was saying he didn’t appreciate the fact that he was in front of the high priest when he said what he said. Perhaps, his outburst was a momentary lapse, and his response was an apology.

Whatever the actual nuance of the situation was, I take Paul at his word that he respected the words of Moses about respecting authority and God’s sovereignty that allowed rulers to rule. Paul would later write:

“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”

Romans 13:1

This is all by way of introduction to the things I want to write about today: the politics of the Church and of people who call themselves by the name of Christ. The disrespectful and polarizing political rhetoric of our times is understandable, given the tensions, emotions and level of disagreement in our country, but I maintain that the rhetoric of the Church and the people of God should be different.

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Favoritism in the Bible, The Here & the Hereafter

God’s mercy shows no bounds, and He is equally merciful to all of us.

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“Now in those days, when the disciples were growing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Greek-speaking Jews against the native Hebraic Jews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.”

Acts 6:1

Even in the early church led by the 12 apostles who lived with Jesus and learned at his feet, the Church was susceptible to favoritism. The early church embraced a radical, communal life in which they pooled their resources, and everyone in need was taken care of. More or less!

The native, Hebrew widows were being taken care of, but the foreign, Greek-speaking widows were being overlooked. Things were not perfect then, and they never are. People are people, and we tend to fall short, even in our best moments.

People naturally tend to look after our own. “Me and mine”, as Pete might have said in the iconic Coen brothers film, O Brother Where Are Thou?

This human characteristic is not all bad. It prompts mothers and fathers to care for and look after their own children. It inspires family members to look after other family members and friends to look after friends.

At the same time, this human characteristic causes us to care more for our own children and families than for others and to care more for our friends than for our neighbors. It causes us to “take care of our own” to the exclusion of “others”, and that can lead to things like racial discrimination, nepotism, and a failure to have empathy for strangers.

James, the half-brother of Jesus, also deals with favoritism in his letter to the early Church. (James 2:1-13) He called the Church to account for showing “special attention” to men “wearing fine clothes” by giving them the best seats while making the poor churchgoers stand or sit on the floor. (James 2:1-4)

James called favoring the wealthy over the poor sin in no uncertain terms! (James 2:9) He described it as breaking the law of God – the law of loving your neighbor as yourself. (James 2:1-2)

James was clear that this kind of favoritism has no place in the family of God. If any favoritism is sanctioned by God, it is the kind of favoritism that focuses on the poor, the less fortunate, and the people that are marginalized by our human tendencies to show favoritism for our own, personal benefit.

When our favoritism is motivated by selfishness, it is sin. James was particularly strong in his condemnation of favoritism motivated by selfish desires. If we “favor” the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the ones who have less influence in this world, we do it without expectation of personal benefit, and we follow in the example of Jesus.

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Thoughts on the Great Commission: Our Finite Tendency to Miss What God is Doing in Our Time

What are we missing? What dogmatic understanding have we clung to that is correct in some aspect, but not completely accurate?

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Go into all the world and tell the gospel to all creation

‭As I read through the New Testament this year as part of my daily reading plan, I have finished the Gospels, and I am well into the Book of Acts. As I read through the Gospels, I was mindful of the context in location, time period, and the history of the area and the people of Israel, surrounding nations, and the Greco-Roman world leading up to the time that Jesus walked the earth. I have also been mindful of the sweep of this history as it has played out since that time to the present day.

As a believer in the story of God revealing himself to human beings in this history that we continue to live into, I am also mindful that this time was pivotal. God becoming incarnate (taking on human form and fully living into His own creation), is the centerpiece of our story. It ties the story together from the beginning to the end that will play out into the future fulfillment of God’s ultimate plans.

Abraham and his descendants have been the focus of this story from the time that he heard God encouraging him to leave his family and homeland and strike out to a land God would show him, full of the promise descendants as numerous as the sands of the shores of the sea and the stars in the sky. But the story has taken an unexpected turn – unexpected, at least, for those descendants who have been living into this story for millennia by the time of Christ.

But it shouldn’t have been unexpected. That original promise to Abraham included blessing for all the nations of the earth. This was God’s plan from the beginning – from the creation of Adam and Eve and the command to “be fruitful and multiply.”

The covenant God made with Moses with those descendants of Abraham, however, took on a life of its own – at least as far as they perceived it. They were (more or less) faithful to that covenant. At least, they clung to that story despite their failings to be faithful and despite their myopic view of what God was doing.

It was myopic because they lost sight of God’s intention to bless the nations of the earth through them. This blessing was embedded into the original promise to Abraham, and it was always intended to be part of the story. Yet, they had lost that thread.

Thus, when God entered into the story to move it along and begin to work out the thread of His ultimate plan, they didn’t recognize Him. The people God chose through whom He would work out this plan unwittingly resisted it.

Yet, God in His sovereignty was not surprised by this. He used their resistance to move the story forward. Jesus knew this when he read from the Isaiah scroll in his hometown synagogue:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Luke 4:18-19

When Jesus told them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”, they were not ready to receive it, though the fulfillment of it was long-awaited by them. Jesus knew their rejection of him would be the catalyst God would use to unfold the rest of the story:

“Jesus said to them, ‘Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”

Luke 4:23

Jesus, the fullness of God in human form (Col. 2:9), knew he would die at the insistence of his own people, but this was meant to be.

“And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!”

Pjilippians 2:8

God worked through this people He chose to prepare for the time He would enter the story, and their rejection of Him would be the turning point.

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A Tale of Two Processions, Two Kingdoms, and the Triumph of God

Two processions, two kingdoms clashing, and God’s triumph in the death of God incarnate on the cross

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Episode 124 – Statement of Triumph – from the BEMA Podcast, with Marty Solomon and Brent Billings, inspires my writing today. It was the subject of discussion for the Saturday morning Bible study I have attended off and on with an exceptional group of men for several years.

The subject was Matthew 21:1-11. The chapter heading in the NIV translation (which would not have appeared in the original text, because there were no chapter headings in the original text) is “Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King.”

This is usually how we read it: a “triumphal” entry. We celebrate Jesus entering Jerusalem as a king. It was triumphal, but not perhaps in the way we tend to think about it. Certainly, not in the way the fledgling followers of Jesus perceived it when they witnessed it.

Marty Solomon sets the stage in the podcast. He emphasizes that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. It was during the week of Passover, an unusually tense time in this region of the Roman world. The uneasy tension existed at that time in that region because it was home to the only group of people in the Roman Empire who refused to worship the Emperor.

The Jewish people were stubbornly true to their God. Even so, Rome allowed the Jews to have their own ruler, Herod the Great. Herod was powerful in his own right, but he was happy to rule alongside the Romans, and the Romans accommodated him to maintain stability in the region.

Even so, this small piece of real estate was problematic for Rome. It sat at the crossroads of the earth. The Hebrew people long inhabited it, but they were a headache for Rome because of their entrenched religious traditions and unabated worship of their God.

When Herod the Great died, three of his sons took over different areas of the land Herod ruled as a vassal of the Romans. Herod Philip ruled the north (Caesarea Philippi). Herod Antipas ruled the middle region, and Herod Archelaus ruled in the south (Judea).

Archelaus only lasted two years, so Rome brought in its own ruler, Pontius Pilate (the Roman Bulldog), to maintain Rome’s control over the region. Pilate didn’t live in the sacred City, Jerusalem. Pilate lived in Caesarea Maritime (Caesarea, By the Sea), a city built by Herod to honor Caesar.

The week of Passover would have been a particularly tense time in Jerusalem because Jews from all over gathered there to celebrate the feast that remembered their great deliverance and triumph over the superpower of an earlier time, Egypt. The last thing Rome wanted was for this celebration to become a rally for rebel Jews fueled up with wine and the legend of their former deliverance.

If there was any holiday that might make the Romans nervous in Judea, it was Passover. Zealots were always stirring up trouble, and Passover would be an opportune time for a Jewish revolt against the Roman rule of this territory that the Jews long held out as their own. After all, the Jews still believed this land was to be theirs again based on their understanding of prophecies about a military coup to be led by a messiah (savior) in the line of their once great King, David.

Every year at this time Pontius Pilate would head south from Caesarea down the coastal road to Joppa. He would head east from Joppa to make his way into Jerusalem. Pilate would enter Jerusalem from the west. He traveled with great pomp and a show of force, with an army of soldiers, trumpeters, heralds, banners, and pronouncements. Pilate would lead the way on a white stallion symbolizing Roman conquest and rule.

This show of power, of course, was intentional.The article, In Through the Back Door, September 24, 2022, by Terry Gau describes these yearly processions made by Pilate into Jerusalem at the beginning of Passover week. John Dominic Crossen and Marcus Borg, memorializes the historical context in their book, Last Week, setting the stage for the final chapter of Jesus’ ministry on earth. The procession is described this way:

“Traditionally, Pilate paraded into Jerusalem on the first day of Passover Week, entering the west gate – the front gate – with legions of chariots, horses, and foot soldiers, dressed for battle and armed with swords and spears.  Rome’s authority would not be questioned.  The majesty with which Pilate enters the front door of the city was meant to inspire awe and fear, respect and obedience.”

Marty Solomon imagines it this way:

“You could have heard him coming from miles away. The message he wanted to send to the Jews was clear. ‘Don’t even think about it! Keep everything under control, or Rome will crush you!’”

BEMA Podcast, Episode 124

Pilate would stay in Herod’s palace in Jerusalem for the week until the festivities ended. Then he would go back to Caesarea. He wasn’t there to celebrate, though. He was there to ensure things didn’t get out of control and to keep the peace.

During one Passover week under the rule of Pontius Pilate in Judea another procession took place. It may have even happened on the same day at the same time that Pilate was entering the City from the west. This procession took place on the east side of Jerusalem where Jesus, riding on a lowly, young donkey with a small, rag tag bunch of unarmed disciples entered through the east gate – the back door to Jerusalem.

“This parade was just as carefully staged as Pilate’s entry into Jerusalem. It was a counter-procession, a different vision of what a Kingdom should be, a subversive action against the powers that ruled Jerusalem. Jesus’ humble, yet triumphal, entry into Jerusalem stood in contrast to the magnificence and brutality on display at the opposite end of the city. Jesus brings peace, while Pilate brings a sword.”

In Through the Back Door

This was the backdrop for episode 124 of the BEMA Podcast and of our discussion. I sit writing at a temporary table with one chair left in my house that is all but cleaned out and being readied for sale. My future is uncertain as I recount one of the most pivotal times in human history and the dealings of God with man and its meaning for us, today.

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