Read Matthew 23
The fifth
and sixth of the woes—hypocrites again.
This is one
of the more difficult sections for men of this century to understand. If your cup is dirty, put it in the
dishwasher. That’s why you bought the
thing. Let it do the work. Why wash the
cup so that it’s clean enough to wash.
What up with that.
Let’s leave
the mechanical dishwashers out of the interpretation. The Pharisees were all about
appearances. If the outside looked good,
people might think that they were clean on the inside.
Jesus knew
better. He continued by calling these religious hypocrites whitewashed
tombs. The tomb looks pretty on the
outside but everyone knows that you don’t want to open a tomb. The smell would be overpowering. The inside of a tomb is not an appealing
sight.
We have looked
at this inside out thing before. If God’s word is not a
work in you from the inside—the heart and mind—then it doesn’t matter how
pretty you make the outside. God sees the heart.
We must take
the words of our Lord, internalize them, and live
them.
Amen.
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