Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 7-9.

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Today’s passage has so many things I want to write about that I’m not going to be able to get to all of them.  So, I’m going to pick a few, or maybe just one, and go from there.  The passage begins with Jesus telling us that we will be judged by the standard by which we judge others.  Most people just pay attention to the first phrase of the passage, “Judge not,” and thus get it wrong.  They mostly don’t even catch the “that you be not judged” with which Jesus finishes that sentence.  I have long taken this to mean that, when we see someone else sinning, We should immediately examine our own lives to see where we commit the same sin.  Then we should work on removing that sin from our own life before we point it out in others.  Actually, I just realized that what Jesus says next is actually part of that same teaching.  Once we have examined our own lives, we can point out to our brother, or sister, how what they are doing may be unwise (In Matthew 18 Jesus addresses how we should do that).  At least part of Jesus point about not giving dogs what is holy or throwing pearls before pigs is that we should not spend time judging those who do not yet know the Lord.  That didn’t come out quite right.  It is one thing to say to non-believers, “God calls all of us to avoid these behaviors.”  And another thing to say to a specific non-believer, “God condemns you for doing this specific thing.”   The latter is what Jesus tells us not to do.  However, I want to measure that against what Jesus says later in today’s passage when He tells us to judge people by their fruits.  We can point out to an unbeliever that the results of their sinful action are undesirable, but if they are unresponsive to such correction leave them be and move on.

I would love to write about more of it, but I am out of time.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.