Main news for 18 April 2026

King James Version (en)

Matthew, Chapter 7, verse 3

¹ Christ, ending his sermon in the mount, reproveth rash judgement

³And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

NOTES

Jesus' urgent counsel, "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged," can be paraphrased this way: "Be merciful toward others, so that mercy may also be shown to you." Yet the apparent simplicity of this thought is complicated by the fact that the second part of the saying speaks not of human judgment, but of God's judgment. At the same time, it is clear that in life those who show mercy rarely receive it in return, and even when they do, there is little reason to look here for a direct connection between one person's kindness and the kindness shown to that person by third parties, so to speak.

It is another matter that Jesus does not call His followers to seek any indulgence for themselves. Christians are simply required to remember how deeply tangled worldly life is: relationships, actions, disputes, conflicts, and everything else that fills human existence, and under no circumstances to pass final judgments, still less verdicts, about what we dislike or what at times truly breathes malice and sows destruction. This is not worth doing if only because every person is merely "a reed shaken by the wind," capable of great nobility, great folly, and even desperate madness...

For this reason, the words about the speck and the log follow in today's passage. Jesus is not simply advising us to be more modest or humble, and certainly not to try to convince ourselves that "I am worse than every creature." In His words one hears a simple friendly wish for every listener or reader: evaluate yourself soberly, and do not indulge in self-abasement. More than that, there is a call to action here: there is no need to pick over other people's bones, and no need for self-digging either; nothing is gained that way. Just wash the eye into which something has come from outside, and look at God, at His generous and understanding attitude toward people; imitate Him, and there will be no need to teach anyone, rebuke anyone, or grumble at anyone. What will remain is only love that persuades without words and builds everyone up...

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you..." Here it is fitting to recall an ancient wisdom spoken by Ovid, in order to see how close and at the same time how distant these two worlds are: enlightened, golden antiquity and the small community of the early Christian Church standing opposite it...

>Jesus' words about judgment could be seen as a continuation of a tradition going back to one of Israel's great teachers, Hillel, who said: do not judge your neighbor until you yourself have been in his place. Other teachers also thought that a righteous person should not rush to condemn his neighbor, even when...

Jesus' words about judgment could be seen as a continuation of a tradition going back to one of Israel's great teachers, Hillel, who said: do not judge your neighbor until you yourself have been in his place. Other teachers also thought that a righteous person should not rush to condemn his neighbor, even when, at least at first glance, there is something for which to condemn him. Jesus, however, appears to modify Hillel's saying somewhat: He says that before condemning a neighbor's sins, one must see one's own sin.

Of course, this counsel also has a spiritual and practical meaning: until you understand how to fight your own sins, you will not understand how to help your neighbor fight his. And it was understood as a matter of course that it made sense to look closely at a neighbor's sins only in order to help the neighbor get free of them. After all, in the Judaism of the Second Temple period, the generally accepted view of the Torah was that it was a guide on the path of righteousness and a means of fighting sin, not a kind of religious club with which to beat the sinner over the head for his sins.

In fact, Jesus calls for great caution in judging a person, not only in the sense of condemning him (no one would have thought of taking upon himself God's prerogative anyway), but in the sense of evaluating him as a sinner or a righteous person. Indeed, in order to give such an evaluation, one would have to know the human heart as only God can know it. Evaluating specific deeds and actions is another matter: anyone who knows the commandments and understands the essence of the matter being evaluated can assess them more or less adequately.

But the question of who is worthy of the Kingdom and salvation, and who is not, is not ours to decide, if only because we ourselves receive this Kingdom not because we are worthy of it. Besides, its story is still far from complete, and so the time for final evaluations has not yet come. And when it does come, in any case, we will not be the ones making them. Therefore our task is not evaluation, but the struggle against the sins that hinder us and our neighbors from walking the path of righteousness, so that we may complete this path in the Kingdom, where each of us will finally be freed from everything that prevents him from living life in its fullness.

FAQ

Could you please explain? "...whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also". Why?

In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself explains these words quite clearly, saying, "do not resist an evil person". In human society, including in Israel during the time of Christ's earthly life, the widespread opinion is that violence must be avenged...

What are the 2 variants of understanding life (what is common, what is different) in the book of Ecclesiastes and in the Sermon on the Mount (Gospel of Matthew chapters 5-7)? What is the purpose, meaning, and value of life?

Both of these biblical texts, so different at first glance, reflect a single understanding of life. The foundation of the understanding of life in Ecclesiastes is, perhaps, that within the framework of earthly life everything that seems valuable and significant to man is, in fact, vanity and a chasing after the wind...

Both of these biblical texts, so different at first glance, reflect a single understanding of life.

The foundation of the understanding of life in Ecclesiastes is, perhaps, that within the framework of earthly life everything that seems valuable and significant to man is, in fact, vanity and a chasing after the wind. Ecclesiastes seeks and finds nothing on earth to which the heart should be attached, which could become a source of happiness, a source of life for man. Even wisdom and moderation, so valued by the ancients, give us nothing but privation, even voluntary privation. Only in God does Ecclesiastes hope to find meaning; but God remains incomprehensible and distant to him. To draw near to Him is hardly possible for man.

The understanding of life in Ecclesiastes is colored by inescapable sorrow, because in this life he sees suffering and emptiness behind everything. The book ends with an unspoken hope for "that day" when the sun and stars will grow dim, and this earthly world will come to its end. The "Day of the Lord," the "Day of Judgment," as the great prophets of the Old Testament called it, may perhaps give man some understanding of the meaning of existence. But the light of this hope is hidden from Ecclesiastes; written in the period between the return from the Babylonian captivity and the coming of Christ, this book sums up the hopeless, joyless, and meaningless existence of man before Christ. The sorrow of Ecclesiastes is such that nothing earthly can quench it, and in this lies the greatest realism of this book.

The fundamental meaning of the understanding of life behind the words of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount is that only God Himself can be the answer to all our questions. The only thing that can be the purpose and meaning of human life is God Himself. Not something proceeding from Him, not earthly life in itself, nor even eternity can quench the thirst resounding in the words of Ecclesiastes. Only God… And the most important thing that the Lord Jesus proclaimed to people is that God has come to us to give us meaning, joy, and life. Even suffering becomes for us not just a symptom of mortality, but a meeting place with the Incomprehensible. Deeds of mercy and the fulfillment of the law, meekness and the rejection of violence, love for people itself — everything gains meaning only because here we find God. "The kingdom of heaven is at hand," the Lord repeats more than once in the Gospel. That Kingdom where life finds meaning, that for which it would be worth living, is inaccessible to us — but this Kingdom itself has drawn near to us out of God's great love.

In Christ, man finds what Ecclesiastes sought and did not find. But nowhere else but in Him can this be found — in this both the book of Ecclesiastes and the Sermon on the Mount converge. Of course, this answer is necessarily brief and most likely incomplete. If we briefly answer your second question in the same way, it will be something like this: The purpose of our life is God Himself, a Person whom one can love, seek, comprehend, and trust. At the same time, the purpose of our life is to fulfill God's design for us: to bring His love into the created world, to serve as a creative principle in the world. This is possible for us only together with God; by ourselves we can create nothing but chaos. These two aspects of the purpose of our life unite in the possibility of being the presence of God in this world, a Temple of the Holy Spirit, as the apostle Paul expresses it.

The meaning of life is thus hidden in the Almighty Himself. As Saint Augustine, the great Christian thinker of the late 4th — early 5th centuries, said addressing God: "You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You." The Lord Jesus Christ Himself expressed this mystery in the words of a prayer addressed to the Father: "That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us." The love that unites us with God to the very depths of our and His nature — this, perhaps, is the meaning of our life. The value of human life I would measure by God's love for each of us. We are weak, empty, and barren; our life often seems worthless to us. But God loves us not because we are good, but because He is God. And we are valuable not because we are good, but because we are loved by Him.

It is unlikely that this answer can claim completeness and objectivity. But, I hope it is direct enough. Practice shows that it hides a wonderful power of life; moreover, it is important to bear in mind that when we meet God, questions disappear. Not that we receive answers, — but there comes a moment when you forget about questions and begin to live, because God Himself is the answer to everything.

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