Seeds for 01/10/2024 - Matthew 23:23-24
Scripture: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”
Observation: There are many way of putting this. Making a mountain out of a molehill. Majoring in the minors and minoring in the majors.
Jesus says it this way: “You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” Jesus heightens the contrast of what the teachers of the law and Pharisees obey and what they neglect by providing us with small items to visualize: mint, dill, cumin. When we picture them, taken together they hardly register on the scale in our imagination.
On the other hand, “the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness” are conceptual rather than concrete like the spices. Still, these weighty words clearly communicate the yawning gap of hypocrisy in the teachers’ and Pharisees’ devotion. I can practically feel this side of the scales lying on the base while the spice tithe dangles lightly in the air opposite.
Notice that Jesus does not say to focus on the big stuff and ignore the small stuff, asserting instead, “You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”
One way that we can avoid the human propensity to stick to the easier expectations and excuse ourselves from the harder ones is to practice confession. The liturgy for Holy Communion helps us out here in that we offer a congregational prayer of confession that refuses to let us avoid uncomfortable repentance.
Merciful God,
we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart.
We have failed to be an obedient church.
We have not done your will,
we have broken your law,
we have rebelled against your love,
we have not loved our neighbors,
and we have not heard the cry of the needy.
Forgive us, we pray.
Free us for joyful obedience,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Uncomfortably plainspoken, the confession invites us to examine our lives and seek the Holy Spirit’s work to grow us in faithfulness and holiness.
Smaller acts of devotion are meant to build spiritual muscle for growing in faithfulness, not substitute for tougher kingdom virtues that we’d rather avoid.
Application:
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, grant me proper perspective and grow me in full devotion to your life-giving, soul-shaping Word. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
If you liked this post from Seeds of Faith, why not share it and/or subscribe?
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™