On This Day: Woe to Neglecting the Greater Good

 

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! (Matthew 23:23-24)

 

   Someone coined a phrase that has proven so helpful to me for a few years now. It was something like, “keep people before problems”. It “resonated” with me, as a friend would say.

   The point was that if we go into a relational disturbance keeping problems before people, we will be in enemy mode, and things will escalate into big trouble. But if we keep people before problems, we will maintain relational mode, and that will encourage the bonding that will help a group work through the problems in a way that builds everyone up.[1]

   This is what came to mind when I looked at how Jesus confronted the scribes and Pharisees for putting the finest details of tithing above the more important issues of how we treat people. This actually helped me in two ways this morning.

   First, the way this rhymes in thought with Micah 6:8 helps me hear how important it is and how much these men should have known this.

            He has told you, O man, what is good;
      and what does the LORD require of you
            but to do justice, and to love kindness,
      and to walk humbly with your God?

   The “justice… kindness… and to walk humbly with your God” rhymes with the “justice… mercy… and faithfulness” of Jesus’ rebuke. Justice requires doing what is right for everyone, no favoritism or partiality permitted. Mercy/kindness means responding to everyone with a heart of compassion so everyone gets the same “love your neighbor as yourself” treatment. And “faithfulness” summarizes walking humbly with our God since loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength is the life that affects everything we do in loving people with justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

   Oh, and the second thing? That both Micah 6:8 and Jesus’ fourth woe partner “justice” with “mercy/kindness” in affirmation that God always relates to everything in the world with both (not picking between the two), and Jesus expects his disciples to do the same personally, with “our people”, with people who are weaker or stronger than us, and with complete strangers. We NEVER neglect justice to be merciful and kind, and we never neglect kindness and mercy in applying justice.

   Now, while the “laws” that govern the church are not the laws of the Old Covenant, the expectation to keep “the weightier matters” of Jesus’ kingdom while also maintaining our smallest of obligations in loving one another still stands. There is something called “the obedience of faith” that guides us in everything we do, and “justice, and mercy and faithfulness” are to lead the way.

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly,
since love covers a multitude of sins”
(I Peter 4:8)

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] As best I can recall, I learned the phrase in this book, Escaping Enemy Mode (How Our Brains Unite or Divide Us) Dr. Jim Wilder and Brigadier General Ray Woolridge. https://escapingenemymode.com/ However, I have read quite a few books by Jim Wilder so I may have heard the phrase in one of his other books first. But this book really does help people see how we go into Enemy Mode and how Christians (of all people) should be the most proficient of getting out of it and nurturing Relational Mode instead (since the Bible is all about relationships!).