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THE CRUELTY OF HYPOCRISY
SATURDAY, JUNE 14
Mark 7:1-13

Ezekiel 33:31-32

 

“…This people honoureth me
with their lips, but

their heart is far from me.”

 

THE CRUELTY OF HYPOCRISY
 
Pharisaism is the outward display of religiosity without the accompanying inward evidence of spirituality. In a word, it is hypocrisy. It is unholy judgmentalism that arises out of a conceited holier-than-thou spirit. Isaiah described these conceited Pharisees and scribes well, “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” They might profess faith, but they certainly did not possess faith. They were careful to cleanse their hands and feet, but not their hearts and minds.
 
As a matter of fact, these Pharisees and scribes invented their own laws in order to nullify God’s. Jesus levelled this indictment against them, “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? …Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition… For God commanded, saying… Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me… And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free… And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye” (Mark 7:9-13; Matt 15:3-6).
 
The fifth commandment of the Moral Law demands of the people to honour their parents. But these rabbis, by means of their humanly invented laws, circumvented the obligation to support their parents by pronouncing the money or property due to them, “Corban” (Heb: “given to God”). Once a thing is dedicated to God, it cannot be changed. So when the time came for them to make an offering to God, instead of giving to God what they owned, they gave to Him that which they owed their parents. Instead of offering two portions, one to God, and the other to Mom and Dad, they needed only to offer one by applying the Corban rule; taking their parent’s portion and making it God’s. This is thievish. What wicked hypocrisy!
 
THOUGHT: “Hypocrisy is always proud and cruel.” (Calvin)

PRAYER: Father, rid me of hypocrisy.

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