Faith in Jesus Makes Free
When the Lord Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, he pointed out that they tithed even of their garden herbs. In other words, they were very scrupulous about this down to the last mite. However, they ignored the more important matters of the law, as Jesus said, judgment, mercy, and faith. They strained out a gnat but swallowed a camel (Luke 11:39-42, Matt 23:16-26). Christians are not automatically immune from falling into the same pattern of blindness. If we were immune, the Lord would not have warned us to beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees (Matt 16:12). There are many important lessons to be learned from this parable but the part that I want to talk about today is the curious conclusion of Jesus' teaching: He said that they should have paid attention to the weightier matters of the law and also not neglected to tithe of their garden herbs. So Jesus is not reproving the Pharisees for their fastidious attention in tithing, He is reproving them for their negl...