Measuring sticks are very important and they need to be meticulously calibrated. In Matthew 7:1-2 Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured you.” In other words, don’t dish it out if you can’t take it yourself. There are lots of examples of measuring sticks gone wrong. The Mars Climate Orbiter, for example, was a $125 million loss when it burned up in the Martian atmosphere. One engineering team used imperial units while another used metric units.
Jesus continued by asking how you see the speck in your brother’s eye when you have a log in your own. He concluded, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (vs. 5). Luke adds a component: “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:37-38).
The point is not that we can never judge. It’s that we better be extremely careful how we view other people. Do we nitpick (use a false measurement) or do we first treat people with kindness, mercy, and forgiveness? If we miscalculate, we could end up becoming like the “too big French trains”–Railway engineers famously ordered over 2,000 new regional trains that were too wide for the platforms at 1,300 stations because they failed to measure the infrastructure.