Day 14 - Plankeye

Well, I cannot credit Jon Warneke for coining the term plankeye, as it appears that there was a Christian alternative band with said name. Nevertheless, the point is made. How many times have I went to help someone out with the speck in their eye and smacked them up side the head with the plank in mine?

If you're unfamiliar with the story, see Matthew 7:1-5 from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.  I appreciate Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of the section in The Message:

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.

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭7:1-5‬ ‭MSG‬‬

"Playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part."  The Bard noted some time after that "All the world's a stage, and all the men are merely players."  We all have our parts, and it's what God's given us in this life. Don't be jumping on others unless you expect them to jump back, and not in the 80's sense.

Jon notes that plankeye leads one to say, "You are wrong and even though I am wrong, I am right."  We may do it out of pride, arrogance, exclusivity, or something else. But, it gets away from what Jesus spent the previous two chapters of the Sermon discussing. One needs to be reviewing one's character and acting as Jesus commands.  We aren't suppose to do it the way the world does it, but the way Jesus tells us. Otherwise, we are just foolish men who build our houses on the sand.

Jesus used hyperbole (speck vs. plank or camel/eye of the needle) to make a point. Why should we criticize someone else for a fault if we're blind to our own considerable faults? (NIV Study Bible notes on Luke 6:41)

It's not that we aren't suppose to judge, but that we're not to judge hypocritically or self-righteously.  Why? Because we're not the ones with the authority to pronounce judgment.  That belongs to God. However, God did put within each of us the ability to discern right and wrong. It's what Paul writes to the Romans about in the second chapter, in talking about the law of God being written on our hearts, so that we're without excuse.

If I should correct a fellow believer (not a non-believer), Jon reminded what Paul was getting at in Galatians 6:1 - I better be led by the Spirit, have a heart for restoration and be acting in humility and gently, or I'm just a hypocrite.

God, surgically remove the plank from my eyes.