Just Ask
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.”
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:1-12)
Jesus regularly told people the Bible didn’t say what they thought it did. Much like the prophets of the Old Testament, he revealed what everyone should have already known.
The word “hypocrite” came from the Greek theater. It referred to the large masks actors wore showing either a smile or a frown. The masks displayed the emotion of a character that would otherwise be invisible to a distant audience in a world without close-ups and microphones.
We rarely have a complete picture of the lives of the people around us. Like the audience at the edge of a theater, we can only judge by the surface mask. Most often, we will judge wrong, seeing what we want to see, or projecting our own flaws. Better off to not judge at all, therefore.
Ask yourself, how would you like to be treated? Wouldn’t you like people to give you the benefit of the doubt? The entire Old Testament—the law and the prophets that Jesus is talking about—is summed up by that concept of love, of doing to others as you’d like them to do to you.
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