I posted this in the Bible verses subforum, but now I think I went one forum level too deep:
[bible]Matthew 7:1-5[/bible]
This has always been one passage that I thought everyone agreed on. Every commentary I ever read (and I've read commentaries from all kinds of sources, Christian, non-Christian, and what CF has started calling non-Nicean).
So I was floored when someone wrote, in one of the debate forums here on CF, that she was authorized to be strongly critical of the other side by Matt 7:5. That once she "removed the beam from her own eye" -- an unspecified "beam" that apparently had no connection to the position she was criticizing -- the verse encourages strongly "defending the truth." Other posters on that board agreed with her interpretation.
I'll agree that there are verses that urge us to be strong in our faith. There are verses that urge us to rightly judge God's word. there are verses that tell us how to instruct weaker brothers. But Matthew 7:5 is not one of them. It is offered, among other purposes, as a counter for overzealousness in instruction or in defending the faith.
To my mind, the only way to reach the other person's interpretation is to not only skip past the previous four verses, but to ignore the very strong interjection with which the verse begins.
How common is this new interpretation, in your experience?