hypocrites #1

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith:

these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

-Matthew 23:23 

|| The Pharisee’s + scribes were the “high and mighty” “religious” men of the day. They spent their time “studying” and copying the law so that they might better “preach and teach” it.

Like so many of our religious leaders of today <Pastors, Pastors wives, Pastors children, Sunday School teachers, deacons, deacons wives, deacons children, etc.> these men had a lot of the wrong motives. They liked to stress the non-important issues while completely ignoring the things that were most important.

>>>Sound like anyone you know?<<<

=these religious people were good at giving tithes and offerings> and hefty showy ones at that. They weren’t concerned about giving money to help the missionary that needed to buy supplies to feed his family for the next month. They weren’t giving money so that the church could have nice chairs instead of the rickety old uncomfortable pews they already had.

They were concerned about it being known that THEY were the one who bought the missionaries food and fed them for a whole entire month. They wanted everyone to know that THEY were the ones who bought the chairs for the church so that they could say they went to a church with nice seating.

*They wanted to make a show out of church instead of taking care of the issues that were important like judgment, mercy, and faith.

>JUDGMENT- they forgot to judge themselves and their OWN motives. Instead they judged the outward appearance and actions of everyone else. While yes, we are told to judge sin, we are also COMMANDED to judge ourselves FIRST. If our lives aren’t right> if we are prideful, haughty, judgemental, etc> then we have absolutely no place pointing our finger at anyone but ourself!

>MERCY- The hypocrite conveniently forgets that God was so so so merciful to us. God sent His own Son to this world to save us from our sins. We consistently forget that. In Luke 6:36 God reminds us, “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” We are to be as merciful to those around us as God was to us!

>FAITH- having faith isnt always easy. Most of the time it isnt just there. Faith is something that we all have to work at- its something that we NEED people to encourage us to have!

These are the things that need to be emphasized first> matters of the heart< before the outward issues.