Biblical Reflections · Christian Life
Do we strain out the gnat but swallow the camel?
3 min read, approximately
Matthew 23: 23-26
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, but neglect the most important matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. These you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and plate, but inside you are full of robbery and injustice. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and plate, so that the outside may also be clean.”
It is the Lord himself who says:
“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you will be cleansed of all your impurities; I will cleanse you of all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, keep my precepts, and put them into practice.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27)
Has the Lord placed sensitivity within us… only for us to neglect the most important matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith?
Furthermore:
“If we say we have fellowship with him while walking in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from every sin.” (1 John 1:6-7)
The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from every sin… so that we can be clean on the outside and dirty on the inside?
And as if that were not enough:
“And because you are children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father! So you are no longer a slave but a child; and if a child, also an heir of God through Christ.” (Galatians 4:6-7)
Through that sacrifice, Jesus Christ set us free! So that, like the Pharisees, we can keep up appearances while inwardly planning how to kill Jesus?
We follow human rules and rituals, treating them as sacred, but forget what matters most: justice, mercy, and faith.
Consider this:
“At that time Jesus was walking through the grainfields on a Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick heads of grain and eat. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him: Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath. But he said to them: Have you not read what David did when he and those with him were hungry, how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law how, on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless?
But I tell you that someone greater than the temple is here. If you knew what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not condemn the innocent, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:1-8)
So, do we strain out the gnat but swallow the camel? Do we live by appearances?
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May God continue to bless you, and may you continue to have an excellent day in Christ Jesus!