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Beams and Specks - The Correct Perspective
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015 12:10pm
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In Matthew 7:3 Jesus talks about trying to pick the speck out of your brother's eye while ignoring the beam that is in your own.  If you look at the root meanings of both speck and beam, one is a twig (wood) and the other is a long board (also wood).  Now if you break that down a little and look at it in its full context, what is it saying?  To fully understand this we first have to look at the common element between the speck and the beam.  They're both wood, right?  So then what is this verse saying?

It's saying that the reason you're so concerned with the speck (ie, sin) in your brother's eye (ie, life) is because you have that same sin (ie, wooden beam) in your own life, but in larger scale.  I've actually seen this in a LOT of people, and myself as well.  The sins we become most angry or displeased with in others are the exact same ones that are present in our own lives.  These are also the same exact sins we most despise about ourselves.  Thus it's why we get angry at others who have them as, by human nature, we won't blame ourselves or take responsibility for them.

So what do we do?  We take out our frustrations at our own sins on others.  Therefore, in our effort to rid ourselves of own beam, we seek out others from whom we can remove their speck (identical sin) in order to, it is wrongly believed, remove the beam from our own eye in the process.  That's like burning down the forest to save the trees.  It doesn't work that way!  That's why Jesus says to remove the beam from your own eye before trying to remove someone else's speck.

Because if you've removed that massive, beam like sin from your own life, you'll find that it's actually all that much easier to reach out to the other person and help them overcome their speck.  Why?  Because, instead of doing it in pain, anger and frustration, you will more correctly and properly do it in love, the way it should be done.  So if something your neighbor is doing is making you angry, it's best to first examine your own life and see if you are indeed picking at specks while ignoring your own beams.

Honestly, if we all focused first and foremost on eliminating our own beams, we would be far less angry at others, and the Church far more loving than it presently is.

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