The Weightier Provisions of the Law

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone. Ye blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!" (Matthew 23:23-24)

Thus Jesus condemns the Pharisees and other seemingly religious persons of Jerusalem in the first century CE. There is much that we can learn from Jesus' condemnation of the religious establishment of His day, and we ought to look at this example and then look at ourselves and see if we perhaps have neglected some portions of God's will.

The text proves to us the following:


1. Jesus is not condemning the Pharisees et al for tithing spices. The charge is usually given by those who have loosed where God has not loosed that those who endeavor to follow God's Word are "legalistic Pharisees," people who obsess over the little thing and do not "let the Spirit guide them." Their reasoning for their charge is completely flawed; Jesus is by no means condemning the Pharisees for tithing the mint, anise, and cummin, for these things "[they] ought to have done." Had they been just and merciful and faithful in some ways and yet did not tithe their mint,.anise, and cummin, Jesus would have condemned them for not fulfilling their obligations to God in regards to the tithe. The Pharisees et al were fully compliant in tithing the spices, and there is no condemnation from Jesus for having done so.


2. Jesus does condemn them for neglecting the "weightier matters of the law." The sin of the Pharisees et al is not in strictly following the tithing laws but is in not being just, merciful, or lawful. These Pharisees were more concerned about being faithful in relatively minor commandments that require little true sacrifice and demonstration of spirituality than being truly faithful to the precepts of God by assisting their fellow man. They should have done both things, not one to the exclusion of the other.