Jesus and the Pharisees – Part 10 – “Forest or Trees?” – Matthew 23:23-24

There’s a phrase, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” The intent of the phrase is to indicate a person is so fixed on the minute details that they fail to see the big picture.

A general who focuses all his energy on one battle, ignoring the overall strategy for the war may win the battle but lose the war. A person intent on one aspect of a contract may gain that particular clause and realize too late that the bargain they made was not to their advantage after all.

The idea of focusing on detail while ignoring the bigger picture can strike anyone at any time.

In this, the fourth of the seven woes, Jesus warns the Pharisee of the danger they have in focusing on the least things.

Background

When God gave the law to Moses, God intended the people to pay a tenth, or a tithe, of some of things they would produce in the Promised Land. Leviticus 27:30-33 speaks of the produce from the land and the herds that are to be tithed. There are warnings against trying to redeem a part of the tithe or to substitute things of lesser value (picking the good from the bad) and the penalty that will be paid under those circumstances. In Deuteronomy 14:22-27, God tells the people to use the tithe in God’s presence at a place He would designate. Eventually, the designated place was Jerusalem, and the people would come to the Temple to participate in this ceremonial meal. He tells them that if they have to travel to far, they can sell the tithe and use the money gained from the tithe to purchase food in Jerusalem. This is how we come to the practice of money changers and things being sold in the Temple.

The Pharisees, ever protective of the law, understood the tithe, but they took it one step further. God spoke of the grains of the field and the fruit, and the Pharisees took it a step further to include the spices that would grow in gardens and fields. In order to ensure the tithe of the spices, they would carefully weigh out the volume of the tithe and set apart one-tenth as a tithe.

The intent of the tithe was to set aside foods that could be used in a religious meal before God. The Pharisees took it a step further and required tithing even the smallest amount of anything anyone had.

It is this practice that Jesus addresses in this woe.

Central Truth: Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for their failure to practice mercy along with the law.

Jesus pointed out:

1. What the Pharisees did (23a)

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin.”

I have always had a problem with the person who insists on following the letter of the law, particularly if doing so creates difficulties for people. The person who insists that a task must be done in a particular way because that’s the way it has always been done or that was the way they were taught while ignoring an easier way to achieve the same result is frustrating to me.

If we look at what Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, though, we might wonder what the problem was if all Jesus had to say was about their practice of tithing even the spices. If anything, we might expect Jesus to commend them for their devotion to this particular law.

The idea of ensuring the tithe applied to even the least of our possessions could become ridiculous if taken to the extreme, though. For instance, if I have ten pair of socks, should I set aside one pair for the specific purpose of wearing them to church and only to church? The same about shirts—should the tenth shirt become the “church only” shirt? Should a tenth of the gasoline I put in my car be required for use to going to and from church or committed to doing the Lord’s work? How far do we go in this commitment to tithing?

There may be nothing wrong with giving a tenth of the salt and pepper in the house to the Lord by donating it to the church cupboard. This isn’t what Jesus was concerned about. To see what His lamentation is about this matter, we need to look at the rest of the verse.

2. What the Pharisees didn’t do (23b)

“But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the latter.”

It’s this part of the verse where Jesus points out the Pharisees’ attention to detail fails to take in the big picture. While they were devoting themselves to the tiniest tithe, they were ignoring what was most important to God—how we relate to the people around us. The Pharisees, in their devotion not just to tithing but to the law in general, had neglected what God had stated through the Prophets many times. They neglected justice, mercy and faithfulness.

In Micah 6, the issue of just what God wants from the people of Israel. The people ask in an exaggerated way, “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” God’s answer, found in Micah 6:8 is, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

In 1 Samuel 15, God sends Samuel to Saul to rebuke the king for failing to follow God’s instructions. God had told Saul to destroy everything that belonged to the Amalekites and to destroy the people as well. Instead, Saul and his soldiers spared some of the cattle and sheep—the best of the flocks. When confronted by this, Saul claimed the animals were spared to be sacrificed to God in thanksgiving for their victory. Saul further claimed that he had done everything God had commanded him to do. Samuel’s reply is found in vs. 22-23: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifice as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king.”

Jesus asks the question, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). In John 14:23, Jesus says, “If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching.” He also says, “If you love Me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15).

The emphasis of the Bible is our relationship with God and how we express that relationship. John, in his first letter, tells us that we express our love for God in the way we love one another (cf. 1 John 4:19-21).

Jesus cites the Micah passage when He pronounces His woe to the Pharisees regarding failing to see the big picture. To act justly is to seek what is true and right in all matters and not be influenced by prejudice or bias. To show mercy is to have compassion for those who are disenfranchised and on the fringes of society. Faithfulness is the same as walking humbly with God.

Most of the commentaries I read indicate that the last phrase of the verse was probably added at a later time and should not be included. It doesn’t really fit with the woe, they say. I’m not sure I agree, though. The focus is that the Pharisees and we should be focused primarily on relationships with God and others, while also paying attention to God’s commands. That is not to say we should all become Judaizers and embrace the entire Old Testament. It does mean that we need to listen to God through prayer and Bible study and to seek to give ourselves more fully to Him each day.

3. The foolishness of the Pharisees (24)

“You blind guides! You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.”

Throughout Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, He has constantly returned to the idea of misplaced importance and values in the Pharisaic system. And this isn’t the first time that Jesus has referenced the enormity of a camel to express an impossible thing to do.

When Jesus watched the rich young ruler walk away from Him after being told he needed to sell all he had, give the money to the poor and follow Jesus, Jesus had then told His followers that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it was for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Here, Jesus uses the camel as an exaggeration of the misplaced values of the Pharisees. They were so precise in the following the very least letter of the law that they didn’t have time nor did they take time to look up from the law and see the people who were hurting, who were seeking, who were yearning for a relationship with God. Because of their focus on the minutiae of the law, the Pharisees had shut the doors of heaven to those who would seek to enter in. They had focused on the insignificant and closed their eyes to the truly important, and they had forgotten what it really meant to follow God.

The danger in demanding the letter of the law be followed is that we have a tendency to cause true harm to people that should never happen. The focus of Jesus’ ministry was filled with compassion and a reaching out to bridge the gap between heaven and earth, between God and humanity. Jesus looked upon the people around Him as people whom He loved and would gladly give Himself for in order to bring them genuine peace and assurance.

In contrast, the Pharisees looked at the people around them saw only sinners and lawbreakers. So intent where they in obeying the law and earning God’s blessing that they failed to see the need to love justice, show mercy and walk humbly with their God. There was no faith in God, only faith in the law. They understood their relationship with God as a transaction—if they did what God commanded, then He would fulfill His end of the bargain and bless them.

For this reason, they strained out gnats and swallowed camels. When we lose sight into what really matters, then the insignificant become significant, and the important become unimportant, never stopping to realize that swallowing a camel would choke the life out of us.

Conclusion

Jesus’ words to the Pharisees speak to us as well. When we get bogged down in the seemingly important things of calling out sin, we forget that loving the sinner is always more important than hating the sin. What are we straining at? Camels, or gnats?