3rd Nephi 14:5

[askandanswer]

Thou ^ahypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

 

It seems to me that a reasonable interpretation of this scripture is that we should first try to make sure that nothing is in our own eye before we try to help someone remove what is in their eye.

Should we really delay helping someone else overcome a fault or sin until we ourselves are free of fault or sin?

[laronius]

This is actually a really good question. At first I thought the answer was pretty straightforward but the more I thought about it the more I saw it wasn't really what I was thinking.

I don't think Jesus was referring to whether or not a person sins but rather our perception of it, that's why he speaks of the eyes. If a person seeks to justify his own sins while condemning the sin he sees in others he's not really in a position to help that person because he is to one degree or another blinded to the truth. But if we are willing to see things as they really are, both in ourselves as well as others, we are in a much better position to help others even while we continue to work on ourselves.

[Ironhold]

18 hours ago, askandanswer said:

Thou ^ahypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

 

It seems to me that a reasonable interpretation of this scripture is that we should first try to make sure that nothing is in our own eye before we try to help someone remove what is in their eye.

Should we really delay helping someone else overcome a fault or sin until we ourselves are free of fault or sin?

I say this as someone who has had (a degree of) training in psychological warfare - 

 

In the late 1990s, comedian Rosie O'Donnell was popular enough that she was given her own daytime talk show and served as corporate spokesperson for a number of different companies. 

A few days after the Columbine school shooting happened, she had an actor scheduled to appear who had just done advertisements for the National Rifle Association. In contrast to her usual behavior as "the queen of nice", Rosie spent the entire interview screaming at him for having done those advertisements, accused him of supporting the murder of children, and made political statements regarding how she felt that private citizens did not need guns.

One of the companies she was a spokesperson for was department store chain K-Mart, who at the time sold hunting and marksmanship rifles in their sporting goods section.

Not only was she criticized for erupting on the actor despite having previously promised not to bring up his NRA advertisements, people openly questioned her commitment to gun control when she herself was being paid by a company that, at the time, was one of America's biggest gun dealers. 

Suffice to say that the network quickly fired her from her own show (regular guest Caroline Rhea was given the show) and K-Mart also dropped both her and actress Penny Marshall as spokespeople. 

You see, the phrase "perception is reality" exists for a reason... and that reason is "people are quick to judge on the basis of what they directly perceive, regardless of how nuanced the situation is or incorrect their perceptions actually are". In a situation like this, Rosie was judged to be a hypocrite, and few listened to her who weren't already primed to hear her message. 

This is in keeping with Paul's warning that if we don't deliver the gospel with love our words are nothing more than noise. 

[CV75]

22 hours ago, askandanswer said:

Thou ^ahypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

 

It seems to me that a reasonable interpretation of this scripture is that we should first try to make sure that nothing is in our own eye before we try to help someone remove what is in their eye.

Should we really delay helping someone else overcome a fault or sin until we ourselves are free of fault or sin?

I think the key to this -- and it has to be answered honestly -- "Do I feel any impatience, criticism, condescension, enmity, contention, anger, etc. against this person? Any hypocrisy?" Not answering this honestly creates the beam and the greater fault. I take the resulting beam to be a lack of charity (judging first) and inspiration (seeing clearly).

[Carborendum]

PART I: (This means that this is going to be a long post, sorrry).

The Greek word for hypocrite (ὑποκριτής / hupokrites) has some additional meanings that are informative (the 3 Ne quote is a re-do of Matt 7:5 which was originally written in Greek).  I'd say that these are also alternate definitions in English as well.

• One who answers/interprets
• Pretender
• Actor (as in Hollywood actors), but implying that they are "playing a role" rather than being honest.

One cannot be helpful to others in conquering their sins without truth.  If all you can do is pretend, how are we to obtain truth, much less dispense it?

PART II: How bad are we?

All of us are sinners.  This is much more significant than what we normally think.  Perhaps, it would be more emotionally impactful if we said

• We're all fallen.
• We're all stained.
• We're all filthy.
• We're all worthy of hell.
• We're all MONSTERS.

That last one is probably the most emotionally compelling.  For that emotional impact, it is probably the closest to the truth of who we are.  If we cannot first admit this, then we don't really know what it is we're running away from.  If we truly understand just how evil we are, we would spend every waking moment begging God to save us from this fallen state.  THAT TRUTH is the beam that is in our own eye.  And if we cannot admit that, then we don't have any power to help anyone.  Only after we've had the awakening to our fallen state and realize that we're a lot more evil than we tend to believe can we even begin to address it.  That awakening is crucial.

PART III: Repentance

The next thing about removing the beam is that we need to admit that we cannot remove it ourselves (physician, heal thyself). Repentance allows us to be open to allowing the Savior to remove it for us.  If we've never worked on repentance ourselves, can we really know how to guide someone else through the process?

PART IV: Moral authority

Sun Tzu said that any leadership must begin with moral leadership.  Authority to speak truth must be based on moral authority.

Quote

A story is told of a woman who was upset that her son was eating too much candy. No matter how much she told him to stop, he continued to satisfy his sweet tooth. Totally frustrated, she decided to take her son to see a wise man whom he respected.

She approached him and said, “Sir, my son eats too much candy. Would you please tell him to stop eating it?”

He listened carefully then said to her son, “Go home and come back in two weeks.”

She took her son and went home, perplexed why he had not asked the boy to stop eating so much candy.

Two weeks later they returned. The wise man looked directly at the boy and said, “Boy, you should stop eating so much candy. It is not good for your health.”

The boy nodded and promised he would.  The boy’s mother asked, “Why didn’t you tell him that two weeks ago?”

The wise man smiled. “Two weeks ago I was still eating too much candy myself.”

This man lived with such integrity that he knew his advice would carry power only if he was following his own counsel.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2019/10/28alvarado?lang=eng

People tend to believe that "hypocrisy" is ok if you admit your own weakness as well.  To some degree that is true.  But I think it is more false than true.

Too often, I hear people say, "Well, at least I know I'm sinning.  But these guys don't even realize what they're doing wrong."  What that means is that they are sinning ignorantly, while you are sinning against the greater light.  Yet you spend more energy criticizing others for being ignorant than you are on your own repentance.  

Perhaps you believe they are following Socrates statement on wisdom.  But they fail to realize his humility in doing so (which was really Socrates' point).

Only when one completely rids himself of a given sin can he be in a better position to help his neighbor with the mote still in his eye.

PART IV: Hebrew Hypocrite

Not that this has any bearing on the Matthew passage, but I thought it might be informative to talk about the alternate definitions of "hypocrite" in Hebrew.

• Godless (no implication on our forum member here).
• Profane
• Irreligious

I wonder if this has a hidden meaning that if we're hypocrites, we're really profane and have no religion or faith in God.