Luke 11:29-53

Inside Out

Margaret and I had a very nice chat with a couple from Canada today. Lee and Mary both teach at the University of Toronto. She teaches Political Science and he is a professor of Religious Ethics. It was a bit awkward at first but after a while we discovered that in spite of our different backgrounds (they are Roman Catholic), different environments, and different countries we had a lot in common. Actually, we had faith in Christ in common and that was enough.

You see, it is actually what is on the in side that counts. Jesus said it over and over again in so many different ways. And he is sayings it here in this passage. BUT, there is more even than that. Lee and Mary and Margaret and I all agreed that it was the inside that mattered but we also believed that what is really on the inside shows up on the outside.

Jesus said, “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” He isn’t at all pronouncing woe on the Pharisees because they give a tenth. He is pronouncing woe because they use an ostentatious outward expressions of religious devotion to mask their unwillingness to practice the things of God they don’t find agreeable.

There are many today who rightly point to “religious” people and fault them for such a practice. And then many of that “many” use that as an excuse to ignore the bit were Jesus said, “You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” They not only don’t give their tenth they also forsake the assembling of themselves together and give little devotion to the Word nor attention to the spread of the Gospel. They claim to do the “later” as if this gave them some kind of “pass” on doing the “former.”

God will ultimately sort all of this inside stuff out. But in the mean time, it sounds like He is saying to do both.