Hypocrites

Jesus is an interesting person. Every time I feel like I know His character well, I read something that awes me. I have been captivated by Matthew 23 for a couple of days now. In this passage, Jesus is addressing the crowds, namely the religious leaders, about hypocrisy. I giggle each time I read verse 3, because Jesus is being a little sarcastic. He says to the crowd, “So you must be careful to do everything they [the religious leaders] tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.”

I think that is funny because this was a good thing/bad thing situation for the religious leaders. On one hand, Jesus was telling the people to obey their commands, which was what they wanted. The religious leaders wanted people to stop following Jesus. But on the other hand, Jesus was pointing out their faults and their lack of faithfulness. I love Jesus.

But His tone turns serious for the rest of the chapter. Verse 23 reads:

How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law – justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but you should not leave undone the more important things.

And my favorite passage in this chapter is verse 24:

“Blind guides! You strain your water so you won't accidentally swallow a gnat; then you swallow a camel!”

Ouch! This scripture struck home for me. There are times where my focus is so locked on some little, minute, insignificant gnat but I’m eyeballing a camel for lunch. Like staying in my comfort zone instead of standing up for justice. Or holding a grudge when I should be showing mercy. And, of course, trying to control every little detail instead of living by faith.

Now when you read a scripture like this, it’s a good idea to identify your water straining efforts and then look for the important stuff. In this passage, tithing is something we should be doing and that’s good, but it’s not more important than justice, mercy and faith. These things are important to God, second to a religious behavior.

Often, we need to ask God to search our hearts like David did in Psalms 51. There is some gnat straining and camel swallowing going in us. Besides, we don’t want Jesus to say the world “Do what they say, but not as they do.” How do we know that’s why more people haven’t come to Christ? Selah.
-Terri J. Haynes