Do As I Say, Not As I Do…

When I read of the Sadducees and Pharisees in Jesus’ day, I can’t help but think of politicians of our day. They are above the law, “do as I say not as I do”. They don’t practice what they preach. Yet everything they do is for show. They live to be honored at gatherings, be interviewed on tv, and love to hear people exalt them everywhere they go. They are “our modern day Sadducees and Pharisees”. Jesus’ advice on how to deal with them is simple, do what they tell you to do, but do not follow their own behavior. They will tell you to do right, so do it. Don’t model their behavior, for it will get you into trouble. Hypocrisy has a way of entangling the practitioner into a web of deceit, so tightly spun, there will be no escape. Hypocrisy has a way of blinding the eyes of those who practice it, that it eventually causes the person to believe what they are doing is righteous. Jesus called the religious leaders “the blind leading the blind”. The moral to this story is to grow closer to God, so that His Spirit fine tunes your eyes to be able to discern truth from hypocrisy. Allow Him to work in you, cornering that inclination, limiting it to the smallest section in your heart, putting an eternal quarantine on it, never letting it raise its ugly head again. That’s what true humility does. And that’s why God rewards the humble.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, 2 “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses.3 So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach.4 They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.5 “Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels.6 And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues.7 They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi.’ Matthew 23:1-7a

11 The greatest among you must be a servant.12 But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Matthew 23:11-12