“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” Matthew 23:23-24
The image that Jesus uses in this teaching is startling. Can you imagine straining some liquid you were about to consume to be sure nothing as small as a gnat came through only to discover that you had swallowed a camel instead? The contrast is remarkable. Why should we worry about a measly little gnat when a camel is about to confront us?
Of course, Jesus was observing the hypocritical practices of the scribes and Pharisees of his day. They were meticulous in tithing the smallest of mints and spices, but as soon as they paid their tithe, they would head to the marketplace to devour a widow’s house. Certainly, the tithing was commanded, and Jesus said that they should rightly have done this, but they were neglecting some aspects of God’s Law that were much weightier. It is like paying meticulous attention to your hair and then forgetting to put on your clothes before you head out the door. It is good to have a great hairdo, but people are not going to pay much attention to your hair if you fail to put on any clothes.
It is not like you could say just forget your hair as long as you have your clothes on. They are both needed. The problem with the scribes and Pharisees was that they were great advisors on what the Law prescribed, and they were happy to dispense these regulations to others. However, they were not good at taking their own advice. Jesus described them in these words: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers” (Matt. 23:2-4). They were experts at defining the Law, but they were failures at following the Law.
There is the possibility that a person can be very religious (the Pharisees certainly were) without being Christian in practice day by day. The accusation that someone is a hypocrite is one that can ruin a Christian’s witness. No one believes that “do as I say and not as I do” is a healthy approach to life. In as far as it is possible, we must strive to be sure our practice matches our preaching. Hypocrisy is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another or the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform. It is the failure to follow one’s own expressed moral rules and principles. Some synonyms for hypocrisy are bigotry, deceit, deception, dishonesty, duplicity, fraud, insincerity, and mockery. If we are practicing any of these kinds of behavior, then it is likely that we are hypocrites.
Jesus did not condemn the Pharisees for paying their tithes of mint and anise and cumin. In fact, he said they should do that. Jesus warned them about forgetting some weightier matters like justice and mercy and faith. Our tithing cannot make up for failures in these other areas of Christian living. It is best for us to be long on example and short on advice. Paul gives us this sound teaching: “Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern” (Phil. 3:17). If we will do that, we may avoid swallowing camels.
L Scott Gage