Matthew 23:23, commentary and pictures

Christ rebuked religious leaders for paying exact tithe on tiny garden herbs while neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness, commanding that the greater duties be done without leaving the lesser undone. The greater duties are the everyday requirements of a loving, loyal heart, to be met in each case by action as well as feeling, not by mere emotion, talk or ceremony. Their fault was formalism and hypocrisy, appearing scrupulously righteous outwardly while magnifying trifles, diminishing eternal things, and hiding an unsubdued heart full of iniquity. Exactness in small things can never excuse or make up for breaking God's commandments and omitting judgment, mercy and faith, and carelessness about life practice leaves a person guilty, law-breaking and stunted in growth. In daily life this means manifesting the love of Jesus in relieving the needy, distressed, widows and fatherless, treating family justly and lovingly, and letting justice, mercy and love of God guide business and home rather than being displaced by small concerns.

Setting and Historical Context

The rebuke belongs to Christ's final day of teaching in the temple courts, when He exposed the character and hypocrisy of the rulers and elders, of the Pharisees and lawyers, warned the people not to follow their example, and at the same time instructed those who were seeking truth. His words of warning and condemnation directed against the rulers were meant to speak to people of every age and nation.

It is part of His denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees and His warning against following blind leaders, recorded as an admonition for future generations. The record was made because abuse of religious authority and its rule over the conscience, the exaltation of human authority to rule the conscience, would continue to afflict the church through all ages. It stands as a warning for later generations against religious leaders who assume authority over the conscience.

He spoke fearlessly and with authority against wrongdoing, exposing hypocrisy with severe earnestness and scathing rebuke of the kind often passed over when only mercy and tenderness are dwelt upon. Even in keen, searching denunciation He showed no irritated temper, for His indignation was directed at grave sins and not stirred by personal abuse or retaliation, showing that righteous indignation against sin can coexist with love and mercy. This was His rebuke of religious leaders who used their lawful authority for unlawful ends, whose outward claims to righteousness and holiness concealed wrong. His calling the priests and scribes hypocrites and murderers was a fact their accusers could report, yet such testimony would not secure a Roman conviction.

It belongs to His denunciation, spoken with burning earnestness and words of terrible severity, of the abominations He saw in the church and in the world. He would not let the people be deceived by false claims to righteousness and sanctity. The same stand requires Christian missionaries and physicians to stand in God-given manhood with freedom of speech and freedom of faith, refusing to harmonize with a fellow laborer's wrong plans or to be cowered into silence by a masterful spirit, refusing to verify statements they know are not true, and refusing to remain speechless under binding influence when they hear wrong sentiments, but protesting and correcting false statements.

Tithing and Weightier Matters

Tithing is a duty laid upon men by God himself, yet the priests carried it beyond what he required by demanding a tenth even from the tiniest herbs. That extension to mint and anise and other small plants turned a divine ordinance into a burdensome and confusing system of arbitrary rules used to distract from essential truth. Exactness in such minor matters could never make up for neglect of the greater duties of the law, for outward religious service is no substitute for an obedient life and service from the heart.

The small duties are seen in carefully paying tithe on mint and anise and cummin, also spoken of as rue and other small garden herbs. The teachers of the people gave close attention to these little ceremonial duties with meticulous outward exactness and detailed ceremony. Their emphasis on forms and human traditions obscured the true demands of the law and helped make them false guides, while the heart could remain selfish and wicked. Both the careful practice and the greater duties were to be observed together, without abandoning tithing and without neglecting what mattered more.

The weightier matters of the law are judgment, also understood as justice, mercy, also understood as love of God, and faith, also understood as faithfulness. These central and essential principles were to be practiced without leaving the lesser duties undone, for observing minor requirements did not excuse neglecting them. Rigid attention to forms and added human requirements, while lacking spiritual life, love and devotion, made religion empty and left men spiritually blind, mistaking minor observances for the more important work of living rightly. Outward precision could thus conceal hypocrisy and failure to practice what was required of others.

Those weightier matters are the everyday duties of Christian life, which require action as well as feeling. Religion does not consist merely in emotions and beliefs, or in repeating with fluency the great truths of faith, talking earnestly and intelligently about solemn gospel truths, the decline of religion and the evils in religious bodies. True faith is not feeling alone nor action alone but the two combined, with practical religion holding claim over heart and mind and daily life together through the working of the Holy Spirit, teaching how to use every faculty and talent to the glory of God for best use in this life and in the life to come. To speak well while neglecting practical daily duty is to act in disharmony with preaching and to treat these duties as though they were not among the weightier matters.

The guilty leaders narrowed God's law to the smallest possible claims and made practical godliness as thin and incomprehensive as possible, keeping exact outward forms while setting aside the spiritual altogether. They felt no obligation to obey general, far-reaching requirements such as judgment, mercy and faith because no particular specification or form for obeying them was laid down. By subtle reasoning, traditions, quibbling and evasions they made void God's purposes, making things positively forbidden appear in conformity with his requirements and turning things upside down. The virtues named are given without fixed form and measure of conformity, left to be met and acted upon according to the circumstances of each case, where the promptings of a loving, loyal heart will see and practice virtue and truth.

Their distorted reading of God's word magnified trifles, diminished matters of eternal importance, and undermined true morality. Treating small religious details as important while neglecting judgment, mercy and faith, and quibbling over minor details while breaking God's commandments, is serious error that no careful observance of minor requirements can excuse. The full meaning of the law is seen by those who obey God's word, and obedience must not be separated from Christ's love and the gospel.

Both Duties Must Stand

Careful tithing does not excuse neglecting the greater duties of the law, and exactness in minor matters cannot make up for omitting judgment, mercy and faith. Outward religious service is no substitute for an obedient life, for what is required is service from the heart and true righteousness rather than mere religious forms. Tithing itself is a duty ordained by God, yet it must not be turned into a burdensome system of arbitrary rules extended beyond His requirements to tiny herbs, nor used to distract from essential truths. Meticulous profession without matching works stands rebuked, since mercy and love flow from lips only where hearts hold mercy and love, and an open sinner has more hope than a fruitless pretender who must deny self, take up the cross daily and become a fruit bearer.

These ought to have been done without leaving the other undone, so the weightier duties must be practiced without abandoning tithing and other lesser duties, and the lesser duties without neglecting the weightier. The scribes and Pharisees carefully tithed even small garden herbs while neglecting justice, mercy and faith, and their meticulous outward religion did not excuse neglect of what mattered more. Exactness in paying tithe of mint and rue and anise and cummin has its place and brings revenues and smaller rivulets into the treasury, but it must never be done by neglecting the necessities of the needy and distressed and overlooking the real wants of suffering humanity. The weightier matters are manifesting the love of Jesus in relieving the needy, the distressed and the suffering, expressing mercy and the love of God to His children, giving sympathy and practical aid, breaking every yoke and setting free the oppressed, and mercy so practiced is truth loved, obeyed and taught as it is in Jesus, with no revealed truth more powerful.

Carelessness in regard to principles that must be brought into life practice is a fatal mistake, and he who is saved must set things right in his own heart by doing both the lesser duties and the weightier duties without leaving either undone. Being quite exact in some things while neglecting judgment, mercy and the love of God is a sad failure and means not keeping the commandments in the strictest sense. Such neglect leaves a person wanting, guilty and law-breaking, with souls stunted and dwarfed in spiritual growth, unable to enlighten or edify others. This is spiritual blindness that cannot discern relative importance, straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel, preferring matters of minor importance and speculative theories to the solemn work of deciding eternal destiny, filling the mind with minor things while making eternal interest secondary and believing only because others believe without knowing why or giving an intelligent reason. God throws the needy, the unfortunate, the afflicted, the widows and the fatherless among His people to test and prove them and develop what is in their hearts, and indifference and selfishness toward them is neglect of duty to Christ in the person of His saints, marked and written against the name with reward to follow as works have been, while the pitying sympathy of the world often shames professed followers.

Being right in the weightier matters of the law is essential, but this is no excuse for negligence in things apparently of less importance, for both great principles and little proprieties must be observed. The principles of the law must be developed in life and character by being firm as a rock to principle while also kind, true, forbearing, pitiful, courteous and gentle, blending firm principle, justice, honesty, integrity and faithfulness with a pleasant and amiable temper and the little courtesies of life. Such a life is made fragrant and refreshing and a blessing to others, gains access to hearts, constitutes moral fitness for Heaven, makes a person of influence, and to be pure, elevated, honest, kind, faithful, courteous and of good report belongs to this completeness.

Jesus Himself made the distinct arrangement that man is to return to God the tenth of his possessions, for God's claim underlies every other claim and He lays His hand upon the tenth as His own. Just in proportion as God has given His property to man, man is to pay a faithful tithe of all his substance as a steward entrusted with His treasures. This tithing work involves solemn and eternal results and is too sacred to be left to human impulse or choice, so no one is free to deal with it as he may choose, but in answer to the claims of God regular reserves are to be set apart as sacred to His work.

Hypocrisy and Formalism Exposed

The woe falls on scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites who appear righteous and scrupulous outwardly while within they are full of hypocrisy, iniquity, iniquity under a cloak of godliness, and wrongdoing. Practicing iniquity in this way brings especially severe retribution.

Their religion was formalism, rigid attention to forms and detailed ceremonies with added human requirements and traditions continually enlarged and reverenced above Scripture. That displacement of the essentials of serving God obscured the true demands of the law, hid them from youth, and left religious life empty of spiritual life, love, and devotion. The same rebuke applies to a spirit of pride, self-rule, and human invention that displaces divine instruction and the spirit of Christ.

It exposes spiritual blindness that cannot discern relative importance, straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. Such blindness scrutinizes small faults harshly and condemns others over minor matters while acting unjustly, dealing unjustly with God's heritage, tampering with conscience, and lightly passing over serious wrongs. Making great account of small things while treating things of utmost importance with indifference is hypocrisy, seen when many words and irritated, arbitrary pressure are spent on others' little acts and words and dress, a harsher fault when the reprover is more faulty, and little faults are best corrected by holy example rather than reproof. Carelessness about principles to be brought into life practice is a fatal mistake requiring the heart to be set right by doing both lesser and weightier duties without leaving either undone.

Paying tithe of mint and anise and cummin while omitting judgment, mercy, and faith is keeping the forms of religion without power to transform character. It comes from looking to men instead of God, taking a human standard instead of God's, turning away from God so His power is not in the life, transgressing His law while claiming His promises, accepting fables in place of truth, and twisting Scripture to justify disobedience. The same condemnation rests on all in every age who claim to represent Him while living in denial of Him, rejecting His counsel and despising His mercy through selfishness, love of money, and desire for worldly honor.

There is more hope for an open sinner than for such a pretender. Those who have spent life in sin but come to God in penitence with a sense of sinfulness are accepted and treated tenderly even when chief of sinners, and stand more favorably for perfection of Christian character. By contrast, professing light far in advance of others without corresponding works or improvement, bearing no fruit for His glory, and neglecting to improve light and opportunities leaves men and women in darkness under heavy denunciation of all vain pretense and hypocrisy.

Outward zeal and show of devotion concealed proud, unsubdued, unsanctified, unhumbled hearts open to envy, jealousy, hatred, and malice. That spirit joins outward exactness with reckless disregard for souls, seeking to be first in everything, shutting others from good and from the kingdom, harming souls by conduct, and failing to practice what is required of others. Scrupulous tithing of small garden herbs therefore does not excuse neglecting judgment, mercy, and love of God.

Jesus condemned this loveless, hypocritical rule in which leaders emphasized outward observances and human demands while failing to live essential principles. Meticulous zeal with ambitious effort and apparent success is not Christlike work when separated from mercy, truth, righteousness, peace, and love for God's people. Attention to rules and outward forms must not displace mercy and love of God, and neglecting them while enforcing forms and regulations is serious failure.

Prophecy Judgment and Warning

The warning exposes those who insist they would not have joined their ancestors in shedding the blood of the prophets, yet witness against themselves as children of those killers by cherishing the same spirit in resisting and persecuting God's messengers. His foretelling that prophets and wise men and scribes sent by him would be killed and crucified and scourged in synagogues and persecuted from city to city was literally fulfilled in the treatment of himself and of the messengers God sent. That same spirit and those same deeds will be filled up to the full in the last days by men who nourish the same spirit, as was marked before and after the Minneapolis meeting, unless they repent. The time is near when providence will make manifest what principles have been cherished by men connected with the management of His work, and unless such men are converted they will be separated from the work, for if they continue to walk in the same path with the same spirit the same judgments that fell upon the Pharisees will fall upon them.

The verse belongs to His woes against the Jews, whose rejection of light left them under severe judgment. Those who neglect the light given to them place themselves in a position even more unfavorable than those on whom He pronounced woe. The denunciation of the self-righteous Jews also condemns people in every age who claim to represent Him while living in denial of Him, rejecting His counsel and despising His mercy through selfishness and love of money and desire for worldly honor. The comparison with the Pharisees warns that religious leaders who oppose a message exposing error can respond with anger and condemnation and persecution. The woes are rebukes of impenitence and opposition to truth and righteousness, and the same rebuke applies to priests and rulers who show those faults.

Omitting judgment and mercy and love of God while scrupulous about little matters brings His woe and denunciation just as surely on all in positions of responsibility and trust who misrepresent His righteousness. It falls on those who are overbearing and imperious, who through dimmed spiritual eyesight neglect God's great and sacred work and fail to reveal justice and mercy and practical love for brethren. It falls on those who make a man an offender for a word, deal unjustly with His heritage, tamper with conscience, and by subtle reasoning make imaginary distinctions of guilt that lightly pass over serious wrongs while severely condemning lesser faults in others. Such deeds prove lack of right principle and are great sin in His sight, and unless repented of bring ruin, for righteousness exalts individuals as well as nations and sin destroys them. Nor is Pharisaism merely ancient, for in the Christian world it can appear as rigid precision and restrictive control that confine the spread of truth instead of allowing room for God's work to advance.

Daily Life Application Today

The weightier matters are showing the love of Jesus by relieving the needy, the distressed, the suffering, the unfortunate, the afflicted, widows and the fatherless, with sympathy and practical aid, breaking every yoke and setting free the oppressed. Exactness in bringing large revenues and smaller rivulets into the treasury and in paying tithe of mint and rue and anise and cummin has its place, but it must never be done by neglecting real human wants or at the expense of justice, mercy and faith. God throws the needy and afflicted among His people to test and prove them and to develop what is in their hearts, and indifference and selfishness toward them is law-breaking, marked and read by God as guilty, wanting, law-breakers, with reward to follow as works have been. Any neglect of duty to the needy and afflicted is neglect of duty to Christ in the person of His saints, and such merciful works ought to be done without leaving tithing undone, for mercy so practiced is truth loved, obeyed and taught as it is in Jesus, and no revealed truth is more powerful. Indeed the pitying sympathy and benevolence of the world for the unfortunate often shames professed followers, and religious duties and organized efforts to advance the cause are of little value when Christ's concern bound up with suffering people is neglected.

Cleanliness and order are Christian duties, and a clean well-arranged home is good, but when carried too far and made the one essential they become small matters like mint and cummin. To neglect the interests of children and the forming of their character for the sake of perfecting a house is to omit judgment, mercy and love of God. Outward attention to small religious duties does not excuse neglect of more important duties, and outwardly careful attention to good things must not displace them or reverse the proper order of importance. The lesson applies to parents who prize cleanliness and order above character, for the proper, loving and wise training of children with care and good judgment belongs to the weightier matters and must not be neglected for lesser concerns.

Judgment, mercy and love for God must guide every part of daily life and business in small and great matters, and making money while disregarding them is an offense to God, with each person's character affecting the work done. Justice and mercy must not be forgotten in the distribution of funds, requiring understanding of the situation of fellow workers who have labored beyond strength under great disadvantages and helping them. Tithing mint and rue while neglecting justice and love for God illustrates misplaced priorities at home, where generosity toward others, especially when it earns praise, is no substitute for treating wife and children justly and lovingly and meeting their needs first. The same warning applies to those absorbed in small or irrelevant concerns while neglecting the daily work of true Christian life and enduring trials without complaint.

Tithing mint and rue while neglecting the weightier matters means being naturally close and covetous, stretching economy into meanness instead of practicing the true spirit of sacrifice acceptable to God. It means watching others and refusing to help unless they follow the same rigid course, and setting up personal judgment and notions as a rule for others. Like the young man who claimed to keep the commandments yet went away sorrowful rather than sell what he had and give to the poor to have treasure in heaven, such exactness in small things without mercy and generosity leaves one lacking the one thing needed for eternal life. Weightier matters must not be left undone or secondary while excessive thoroughness is given to other subjects, and balanced judgment and counsel keep necessary work in view. Some subjects need examination, but not with such thoroughness that time and effort are consumed while essential work such as promptly presenting the history of the Sabbath is left undone, whether the distraction is arguments about the round world and the Sabbath controversy, spending precious time accommodating brethren, or even temperance activity however worthwhile, for spiritual interests and distinctive beliefs that shape faith and identity must not be neglected.

World-loving members and ministers repeat the tithing of mint and anise and cummin while losing sight of the infinitely weightier matters of mercy and love of God. Obedience to Bible truth involves a cross they are unwilling to lift, so they turn from Christ to worship man and to extol oratory and brilliant talent. They soothe and quiet consciences with pleasing fables, cry peace, peace, excuse sin, forward fashionable display and indulgence, refuse to rebuke darling sins, and desecrate the temple of God with merchandise, suppers and festivals appealing to appetite. They thus set youth an example opposite to Christ in precept and example, leaving characters spotted and stained with sin in the broad way that leads to death. Professed believers in the last days are found wanting when they neglect judgment, mercy and faith, believing only because others believe and taking truth for granted without knowing why or being able to give an intelligent reason.

Filling the mind with things of minor importance while making eternal interest secondary leaves conversation superficial instead of deep, earnest and thorough, and leaves souls dwarfed, stunted and crippled in spiritual growth, unable to enlighten or edify others through experience or knowledge. Strength and stability belong to true-hearted professors who earnestly learn and understand why they believe. Faithfulness includes understanding and practicing justice, mercy and love for God, and those whose understanding is clouded so they cannot distinguish righteousness from evil should not be entrusted with responsibilities. Those who represent Christ in sacred positions must decisively reform under this denunciation of scribes and Pharisees, not dealing harshly but showing His mercy, tenderness, forbearance and love.