What is the context?
This brief saying follows the warning against hypocritical judgment. It introduces another kind of care: recognizing how something holy and precious may be received. The pictures of dogs and pigs show contempt for what is offered and danger to the person offering it.
Jesus does not identify the holy thing or pearls with a single item in this verse. The images contrast their value with the response of trampling and attack. That leaves readers to consider how the warning applies, rather than treating every person in a broad group as the same kind of hearer.
The preceding instruction still ends with helping a brother after addressing one's own fault. The following teaching turns to asking the Father for good things. This saying calls for wisdom about the response to what is holy within a chapter that also requires humility and generous conduct.
Jesus' ministry includes reaching people known for sin. In Mark 2:15–17, He eats with tax collectors and sinners and explains that He came to call sinners. That account matters when considering the scope of this warning: contemptuous hostility and the mere fact that a person needs God's mercy are different concerns.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Christian readings differ over what the holy thing or pearls represent. Wesley's note on Matthew 7:6 applies the warning to sharing deep spiritual teaching with people persisting in sin, or personal spiritual experience with hostile hearers; he still allows appropriate correction of wrongdoing.
An early application concerns sharing the church's bread and cup. The Didache, chapter 9, a Christian teaching manual, cites this saying when limiting participation in its thanksgiving meal to those baptized in the Lord's name. That is a particular early use of the warning, rather than proof that every Christian tradition gives the verse only that meaning.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.