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Luke 6:39–42
“How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye” (v. 42).
The influential early-church father Cyril of Alexandria’s teaching helped lay the foundation of the church’s confession of the hypostatic union: Jesus is one divine person in whom are perfectly united a human nature and the divine nature. Cyril’s comments on Jesus’ words in Luke 6:37 that we “judge not” bear repeating because they help set the stage for our study of today’s passage. Cyril writes, “Whoever therefore is guided by good sense, does not look at the sins of others, does not busy himself about the faults of his neighbor, but closely reviews his own misdoings.”
Jesus continues providing instruction on the theme of judgment in Luke 6:39–42. Having warned us to temper our judgment with mercy and to apply to others the same standards of judgment that we apply to ourselves (Luke 6:37–38), Jesus gives guidance on how we can develop a sound standard of judgment (Luke 6:39–40) and on the order we are to follow in making judgments (Luke 6:41–42). First, let us consider what Jesus says about the order of our judgments. Simply put, we are to endeavor to look at our own lives first before we evaluate others, and in so doing, we must make sure that we deal with the significant sin in our own lives before we correct others. Our propensity as sinners is to ignore the log—the serious sin—in our own lives and to focus inordinately on transgressions in others that are comparatively less weighty. We are hypocrites when we do this, pretending that our more serious sins are not as significant as they truly are. Thus, we must deal with ourselves first, putting our own sin to death before we deal with the sins of others. Matthew Henry comments, “To help to pull the mote out of our brother’s eye is a good work, but then we must qualify ourselves for it by beginning with ourselves; and our reforming our own lives may, by the influence of example, contribute to others reforming theirs.”
Luke 6:39–40 warns us about the danger of the blind leading the blind, reminding us that students become like their teachers. The main point seems to be that we must choose our teachers carefully. If we choose wrongly, we will be led into disaster, just as a blind person will lead another blind person down wrong paths. Having the wrong teacher will end in our receiving bad standards and methods—in this context, bad standards for judgment. Picking the wrong teacher will make us more likely to commit the errors in judgment that Jesus warns us about.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
We will deal with sin until we die or Jesus returns, whichever comes first. Thus, Jesus in Luke 6:41–42 does not mean that we cannot address the sins of others until we are ourselves sinless. He means only that we must be dealing with our own sin before we look to the sins of other people in the church. Each day, we must be putting our sin to death and pursuing holiness. Only then can we hope to help others do the same.
for further study
- Deuteronomy 1:16
- Jeremiah 17:10
- Matthew 7:3–5
- 2 Corinthians 13:5
the bible in a year
- Joshua 23–24
- Luke 6:27–49