The Evil Eye.

I’m sure everyone has heard the cliché “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” but have you ever thought that maybe hypocrisy is in the eye of the beholder too? Now I know hypocrisy is hypocrisy but I’m referring to the fact that maybe it’s much easier for us to see hypocrisy in others before we see, or at least admit there is hypocrisy in our own.

Matthew 7:1-5 in the New International Version records that Christ taught about this very thing. Matthew records that Jesus said,
1"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Now what this tells us is that Jesus knows we have a tendency to see others faults before we recognize and rectify our own. Now those who dislike Christianity love to quote the first 3 words of this first verse in Matthew 7 where it says, “Do not judge”. But they, along with some believers, fail to actually see the total content of what Jesus was saying here. So to put it in a nutshell, Yes sometimes it’s easier for us to “judge” others before judging ourselves and indeed that is hypocritical of us but on the other hand consuming this record of Jesus’ teaching in its entirety we see by verse 5 Jesus says once you have honestly evaluated yourself and corrected your own self-blindness then you will see better how to remove someone else’s. To quote Matthew who quotes Christ, the end of verse 5 says, “and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.” You see we usually take these 5 verses and SEE them in the totally wrong perspective and act as if we are to not judge others and this is not what Jesus was teaching.

As a matter of fact I really like the way the Message bible puts it, it says,
Matthew 7:1-5 1-5 "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.

You see HYPOCRISY IS LITERALLY IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER but yet it is the beholders responsibility to make sure his beam has been pulled before he helps others with their dust.