It’s An Inside Job! Matthew 23:23-32

Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth(W)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. 24 You blind guides!(Y)You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Once again the teachers and Pharisees have missed the point of the laws relating to tithing. Tithing was meant to be and act of thanksgiving giving back to the temple as a response to all the blessings God had given them.  But instead they got caught up in the trivialities of tithing like giving a tenth of their spices   In doing so they focused on themselves and how righteous they were to even tithe their spices. 

Meanwhile as they were spending so much time on this they were neglecting the weightier matters such as the needs of people for justice and mercy.  Notice Jesus says you should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former.   Meaning there was nothing wrong with tithing but they had completely missed its significance and meaning  

25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish,(Z) but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.(AA)

26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

To the outward appearances the Pharisees may have looked religious but God saw their hearts   While man looks at the outside God looks at the heart.  Hebrews 4:13 says, 

“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

Christianity is an inside job. God transforms us from the inside out by the renewing of our minds and shaping by the Holy Spirit  

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

Verse 27 is nearly identical to verse 26, just a different metaphor. 

It was the custom of the Jews of that time to whitewash the tombs in the city of Jerusalem before Passover so that no one would touch one accidentally, thus making themselves ceremonially unclean. Jesus said these religious leaders were like these whitewashed tombs – pretty on the outside, but dead on the inside. Guzik

Bottom line:  We cannot fool God and God cannot be mocked   Galatians 6:7

28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

People may not think this but it takes a lot of work to maintain this kind of double standard.  But we cannot have peace with God when we live in this way.  The Holy Spirit who lives inside of us convicts us of our sin of duplicity.   

29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets(AC) and decorate the graves of the righteous. 

The Pharisees tried to venerate the prophets but in doing so repeated the same errors of the former prophets. 

30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

We say this in effect when we say, “I would never deny Jesus like the disciples did”. 

There is no necessity for assuming that the Pharisees did not mean what they said. It was simply an instance of the unconscious hypocrisy of which every generation has more or less been guilty, when it has condemned the wrong-doing of the past—its bigotry, or luxury, or greed—and then has yielded to the same sins itself. Ellicot

31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.

Jesus is not mincing words here.  He calls the bluff of the Pharisees and teachers of law.    We call this generational sin whereby  the sons repeat the sins of their fathers.  

And before we get too hard on the Pharisees, we too have inherited a sinful nature. Though we may not consider our ancestors murderers, we all are born of Adam. 

32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

But in the end the sin of these leaders would be they would murder the ultimate prophet the Son of God. Jesus knew this would happen and would soon allow these men to bring about his death. 

Where in your life do resemble acting like a Pharisee? How do you try to cover up what is happening on the inside with what you try to project on the outside?