He's Not Talking About Me, Is He?

Matthew 23-25

Jesus heaps righteous criticism upon the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees.

• They don’t practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.
• You shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.
• You cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell you yourselves are!
• You are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith.

Whenever we read of Jesus condemning religious leaders, we do well to earnestly seek as to whether he is talking to us too. Plato advised that "The unexamined life is not worth living." That examination of our life must include both our overt actions and our inaction. If our passion is proclaiming the wages of others' sin, without helping them out of that life of sin, we deftly earn that wage. If we place a stumbling block in front of others by our teaching, we shall stumble too. If we evangelize the nations, then disciple them to be hypocrites too, we have only succeeded in finding roommates for ourselves in hell. If we check every little box, but miss the message, we are nothing.

He's not talking about me, is he? Father God, guide me in your path of righteousness, keep me off the highway to hell. Help me to be your image bearer.