then you will see clearly
to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.”
This is a passage we often read as saying something other than what it says. Our calling is to remove the splinter from our brother's eye. We act as if this is something which we want to do that is discouraged. But really, helping a brother to remove a splinter is a highly personal thing which is unlikely to be fun for the person doing it. Though it is more fun, it seems, than dealing with our own issues. Rather than helping our brother out of love we use him as a distraction from our own shortsightedness!
But we are being trained as disciples. We are supposed to become like our teacher. There are millions falling in the pits of sin all around us and we cannot help because we don't see much better than them.
Rather than talk about splinters that only serve as distractions from our own hearts we need to be more like Paul. He is always an example of what he preaches.
No, I drive my body and train it,
for fear that, after having preached to others,
I myself should be disqualified.
More than almost anyone his life shows a one to one correspondence between his preaching and his living. How does he do it? Single-pointed focus on the goal:
Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race,
but only one wins the prize?
Run so as to win.
Because Paul knows his purpose he is willing to surrender some of his own rights in order to pursue it. He knows how it important it is that he preach the gospel. He isn't doing it pridefully, as if he is earning God's love.
If I preach the Gospel, this is no reason for me to boast,
for an obligation has been imposed on me,
and woe to me if I do not preach it!
If it was an ego-thing Paul would be blind to the needs of his congregation. But as it is Paul does it because his goal is the kingdom. His heart is filled with God's priorities, with the roads of pilgrimage. The splinter is gone from his own eye. He genuinely cares that the people he serves also have their eyes healed.
Although I am free in regard to all,
I have made myself a slave to all
so as to win over as many as possible.
I have become all things to all, to save at least some.
All this I do for the sake of the Gospel,
so that I too may have a share in it.
May God be our first priority. May we want to see him more than anything. And as we grow in that vision may he use us to share it with others.
My soul yearns and pines
for the courts of the LORD.
My heart and my flesh
cry out for the living God.
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