Luke 6:41,42

Vers. 41 and 42. “ And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 42. Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye. ”

In order to be useful in correcting another, a man must begin by correcting himself. Love, when sincere, never acts otherwise. Beyond the limits of this restraint, all judgment is the fruit of presumption and blindness. Such was the judgment of the Pharisees. The mote, the bit of straw which has slipped into the eye, represents a defect of secondary importance. A beam in the eye is a ludicrous image which ridicule uses to describe a ridiculous proceeding, a man's assuming, as the Pharisee did, to direct the moral education of his less vicious neighbour, when he was himself saturated with avarice, pride, and other odious vices. Such a man is rightly termed a hypocrite; for if it was hatred of evil that inspired his judgment, would he not begin by showing this feeling in an unsparing judgment of himself? Ordinarily, διαβλέψεις is understood in this sense: Thou wilt be able to think to, to see to...But can βλέπειν, to see, be used in this connection in an abstract sense? The connection between ἔκβαλλε, take away, and διαβλέψεις, thou shalt see, should suffice to prove the contrary: “Take away the beam which takes away thy sight, and then thou shalt see clearly to...” The verb διαβλέπειν, to see through, to see distinctly, is only found in this passage, and in its parallel in Matthew, in all the N. T. This has been held to prove that the two evangelists both employed the same Greek document. But characteristic expressions such as these doubtless originated in the first rendering of the oral tradition into the Greek tongue; precepts then took a fixed form, certain features of which were preserved in the preaching, and thence passed into our Syn.