Daily Devotions
Majoring in the Minors
Reading for August 8th: Isaiah 49-53
Weekly reading for August 2-8: Matthew 20-24
"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. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!"
Matthew 23:23-24
The Pharisees were guilty of majoring in the minors.
The Law commanded tithing (giving a tenth) and the Law said they were to include the "seed of the land," which meant the increase of their seed (Lev 27:30; Deut 14:22). However, the Pharisees took that to mean the literal seed of the land, and so they would go through all of their seed (even the mint, dill, and cumin) and separate every tenth seed for God.
The problem was not that their careful tithing (though the seed counting was extreme), but that they were more concerned about tithing than the "weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness." This appears to be a loose quotation from Micah 6:8, "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?" God was more concerned with justice, mercy, and faithfulness (walking humbly with God) than with sacrifices and offerings (see Micah 6:1-7).
Jesus then turns to a humorous illustration of what the Pharisees were actually doing. The gnat was the smallest unclean animal (Lev 11:42), and it seems likely that the Pharisees would strain gnats out of their drinks if they saw one in it. However, Jesus said while they strained out these gnats, they were swallowing camels, the largest unclean animals according to the Law (Lev 11:4).
We wouldn't be guilty of this, would we? Do we glory in the gnats we strain out of our drink and the seeds we count in our tithe, while we swallow camels and neglect the weightier matters?
Father, forgive us for majoring in the minors. Help us to move with reverent fear as we carefully obey ALL of your commandments, not just those which might make us look good.
