Denouncing the Pharisees
45
the minds of many conscientious widows that they believed it a duty
to devote their entire property to religious purposes. These deluded
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women would trust the appropriation of their money to the scribes
and priests, in whom they placed implicit confidence; and those wily
men would use it for their own benefit. To cover their dishonesty
they made long prayers in public, and a great show of piety. Jesus
declared that this hypocrisy would bring them the greater damnation.
Many professors of exalted piety in our day come under the same ban.
Selfishness and avarice stain their lives; yet they throw over all this a
garment of seeming purity, and deceive honest souls; but they cannot
deceive God; he reads every purpose of the heart and will mete out
to every person according to his works. The Saviour continued his
denunciations:—
“Woe unto you, ye blind guides, who say, Whosoever shall swear
by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of
the temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind; for whether is greater,
the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And, Whosoever shall
swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift
that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools and blind; for whether is greater,
the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?” The priests interpreted
the requirements of God to meet their false and narrow standard. They
presumed to make nice distinctions between the comparative guilt of
various sins, passing over some lightly, and treating others of perhaps
less consequence as unpardonable. They accepted money from persons
in return for excusing them from their vows; and in some cases crimes
of an aggravated character were passed over in consideration of large
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sums of money paid to the authorities by the transgressor. At the same
time these priests and rulers would pronounce severe judgment against
others for trivial offenses.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe
of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters
of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith; these ought ye to have done,
and not to leave the other undone.” According to the requirements of
God the tithing system was obligatory upon the Jews. But the priests
did not leave the people to carry out their convictions of duty in giving
to the Lord one-tenth of all the increase of the marketable products
of the land. They carried the requirements of the tithing system to
extremes, making them embrace such trifling things as anise, mint