SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/26/2023 9:58 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 "False Leaders Are Cursed For
Their Inversion"
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 23:23-24
Message of the verses: “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. 24 “You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
I have to say that because my vocabulary is not the
best as far as knowing what certain works mean that I am glad for my computer
to be able to look up the meanings and not have to drag out a dictionary. “Inversion:” “When there is an inversion of
something, it is changed into its opposite. [formal] ...a scandalous inversion of the truth.
Synonyms: reversal, opposite, antithesis, transposition.” I think that this definition of inversion
fits what is being talked about by our Lord in these verses.
In this SD we will begin to look at
the fourth curse that Jesus gives to the scribes and Pharisees, and it is for
inverting divine priorities, as they magnified the insignificant and minimized
the essential.
What exactly are mint and dill and
cummin? These are garden herbs that are
used as kitchen spies, and they were not generally considered farm
produce. In the Mosaic Law farm produce
was to be tithed on. I suppose that if
you think of farm products you may think about things like wheat or corn, or
perhaps fruit that grows on a tree, but these spices were not considered farm
products so one does not need to tithe on them.
I think that during this time period a person could figure out what farm
items were wroth and then pay the tithe in money instead of bringing a large
amount of them to the Temple. In Leviticus
27-30 of the Mosaic Law we see about what is to be tithed to the treasury in
Israel. MacArthur writes “Because it
helped support the government, which was a theocracy operated to a great extent
by the priesthood, the tithe was a form of taxation. A second tenth was to be paid each year for
support of various worship ceremonies and national festivals (Deut. 12:11,
17). Another tithe was to be paid every
three years for a type of welfare, to support the Levites, aliens, orphans, and
widows (Deut. 14:28-29), which amounted to an additional 3.3 percent a
year. Israelites were therefore required
to pay just over 23 percent of their income a year in taxes to fund the
theocracy.” I find this very interesting
to know the amount of tithe that was paid during this time period.
MacArthur goes on to explain more
about the instruction for tithing produce as also seen in Deut. 14:11 which was
related to marketable farm crops such as grains, olive oil, wine, fruits, and vegetables. He writes “But the legalistic scribes and Pharisees
extended the provision to include the smallest potted plant grown in a kitchen
window.
As today, herbs then were grown mostly for their leaves and seeds, and when the
scribes and Pharisees picked leaves from a mint plant or gathered seeds from
the dill and cummin plants, they would carefully count out the leaves and
seeds, separating out one for God from each ten counted. They gloried in the self-righteousness of
subscribing to such minutiae.” Now I
suppose that, like these scribes and Pharisees that you believed that you had
to work your way into heaven by doing things like this then it would seemingly
make you happy or fulfilled. However
this is not what God requires of a person, as when Jesus Christ died on the
cross, like the song goes “Jesus Paid it All,” and then it goes on to say “and
all to Him you owe.” Let me once again
share Ephesians 2:8-10 to make this point clear: “8 For by
grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For
we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Now notice in verse eight is
says “by grace you have
been saved through faith.” This
indicates that Paul is writing to believers telling them what happened and how
it happened that they were saved. Paul
then goes on to write “and that not of yourselves.” As we relate this to our verses in Matthew we
could say that tithing these small herbs cannot get you into heaven. Next “so
that no one may boast.” Now again relating this to our verses in Matthew we see
that the scribes and Pharisees loved to boast about how righteous they
were. Next “not as a result of works, so
that no one may boast.” The “works” that
the scribes and Pharisees did they seemed to always boast about it, but when a
person is truly born-again then he has nothing to boast about because of the
fact that Jesus did it all. Verse ten is
one of my favorite verses of all time as verse ten gets things in order of what
is to be seen in these three verses from Ephesians chapter two. You don’t work for your salvation as “Jesus
Paid It All,” God in eternity past as chosen works for believers to do for the
cause of Christ after they become believers, “all to Him I owe.” I have stated in earlier SD’s that I truly
believe that God, in eternity past has chosen for me and all believer what they
are to do once they become believers, and the only way to do what He has called
you to do is through the power of the Holy Spirit. Here is a verse that goes along with my
Sunday school lesson for this upcoming Sunday:
“‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts”
(Zech. 4:6b). Once a person is saved by
grace through faith the Holy Spirit then lives in that person, and He will led
that person into the “works” that he is to do, and then give him the power to
do these works for the cause of Christ, so that Christ will receive all the
glory.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Not to do things in my own power as they will
not be of any use for the cause of Christ.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: Be filled with the Holy Spirit in order
to discern the things that He desires for me to do for the cause of Christ.
10/26/2023 10:50 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment