Question: Matthew 7:3 ESV

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> 3 ***Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye***? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?
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Christ speaks of a speck in your brothers eye and warns one to remove a log in ones eye before attempting to remove it from your brother"s eye

In the above text was Christ warning one never to try rebuke a brother whilst doing the same particular sin or just any other sin.

Was Christ warning about a particular sin or just general sins.

Answer: 
If the thief on the cross would join Christ in paradise, would Stephen experience the same in Acts 7:59?

Probably not.

Luke 23:

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> 40 But the other **criminal** rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
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> 42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. d ”
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> 43Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in **paradise**.”
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This person was a criminal who violated Roman law. He would head for paradise described in
Revelation 2:

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> 7 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the **paradise** of God.
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On the other hand, Stephen did not violate any Roman laws, Acts 7:

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> 58 When [the Jewish Council] had driven him out of the city, they began stoning [Stephen]; and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul [Paul]. 59They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!'"
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Steven died as a Christian martyr. His next stop was different from the criminal,
Revelation 6:

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> 9 When he [Lamb] opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been **slain because of the word of God** and the testimony they had maintained. 10They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.
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This question touches a theological debate. Here is one side.

The thief was *not* ‘born again’. He was like all the other ‘Old Testament’ saints. After death, their soul went to Paradise - Abraham’s ‘bosom’. Possibly as presented in Luke 16.

Stephen *was* born again. [unlike the thief] His spirit was ‘one’ with Christ. On death he would ‘be’ together with Christ. So being ‘in’ Christ, he would be with Christ. This resolves John 3:13.

So under this ‘view’, this question is unanswerable.