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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadBob Utley You Can Understand the Bible - Matthew 23:23 - 23:24
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat_23:23-24
23"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. 24You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!"
Mat_23:23 "you. . .hypocrites" See Special Topic at Mat_6:2.
▣ "you tithe mint and dill and cummin" In their legalism (cf. Lev_27:30-33; Deu_14:22-29), they counted even the smallest spices so as to give precisely ten percent to God, but they neglected justice, love, and fidelity. The New Testament does not speak of tithing except here. The heart of New Testament giving is not found in a percentage (cf. 2 Corinthians 8-9)!
NT believers must be careful of turning Christianity into a new legal performance oriented code (Christian Talmud). Their desire to be pleasing to God causes them to try to find guidelines for every area of life. However, theologically it is dangerous to pull old covenant rules which are not reaffirmed in the NT and make them dogmatic criteria, especially when they are claimed to be causes of calamity or promises of prosperity!
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Mat_23:24 "who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel" The Pharisees of Jesus' day would filter their water through cloth to keep from inadvertently swallowing an inclean insect, but in reality their legalistic unlove caused them figuratively to swallow an unclean camel! This was a word play between the Aramaic terms gnat, "galma" and camel, "gamla." This was an Oriental hyperbole. Jesus often used camels in His overstatements (cf. Mat_19:24; Mar_10:25; Luk_18:25).