Bad Acting

Luke 6: 40 - 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.

Verse after verse of Luke 6 is still as relevant today as it was when Jesus first spoke these words. Jesus attacks the double standard again with this familiar metaphor: take the log out of your own eye before you try to take the speck out of someone else’s. In other words, judge yourself before you judge someone else. Criticize yourself before you criticize someone else.

The word used to describe the person who fails to judge themselves before judging others is called a hypocrite. It originated in the Greek theater to describe an actor who effectively pretended to be someone he was not. Although it was used to praise actors when used in the heyday of Greek tragedy and comedy in the sixth century BC, by the second century BC it was used by Greek speaking Jews to describe people who pretended to be righteous but were truly evil inside. This is the sense in which Jesus uses it. The Jewish religious leaders of his day knew how to put on a good show and appear to be good while really having bad hearts.

We are still vulnerable to the bad acting of hypocrisy today. In fact, the kind of judging that Jesus condemns is usually done in an effort to put others down in order to make the critic look better. Isn’t that the tactic of most political campaigns? Let’s be careful when and how we judge and criticize others. Sometimes it is necessary (see I Corinthians 5), but let’s always check our hearts.