By David ReayMonday 10 Nov 2014LifeWords DevotionalsEntertainmentReading Time: 0 minutes
Transcript:
Read Matthew 23:25-26
25-26 “What miserable frauds you are,you scribes and Pharisees! You clean the outside of the cup and the dish,while the inside is full of greed and self-indulgence. Can’t you see,Pharisee? First wash the inside of a cup,and then you can clean the outside. (JBP)
Going into some people’s homes is like entering a well ordered museum. Everything is in its proper place. Not a trace of disorder can be found to spoil the neat perfection of the place. You feel like a trespasser,daring to disturb the correctness of it all. Such a place might be a house,but might yet fail to become a home.
Those who obsess about outward appearances can create a beautiful impression,can prompt a response of admiration. But such an obsession can too easily conceal an inner sterility,a fear of any hint of disorder.
The problem with such people is that life is not always orderly. Things get messed up. People interrupt the orderliness and break things and move things. While no one is advocating chaos and filth,we neither advocate obsessive neatness which will always end up giving way to the not-so-neat quality of human life.
It is much as Jesus teaches in this text. Obsessing about outward things may cause us to neglect our inner worlds. We might pay so much attention to looking good on the outside that we fail to cultivate any sort of inner goodness. Or to put it in more domestic terms,we may be so busy trying to create a beautiful house that it ceases to be a home where mere humans can live in.
Blessings
David Reay