Boxed In by Hypocrisy

Bible In A Year | Read: Luke 6

41 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Luke 6:41-42

Overview of Chapter

Here there are a couple of incidents which take place on the Sabbath. The Old Testament law taught that a person could not work on Saturdays. As we also saw in Matthew, the Pharisees were the strictest followers of these rules, so they are upset when Jesus and his followers do things on the Sabbath they felt were work. Jesus points out an event from their history where the law was ignored to feed hungry people. Luke then records a similar, or maybe the same, sermon Matthew did. Jesus is teaching that following God requires more than just rule following.

Sometimes people dismiss Jesus’ more extreme teaching by coming up with hypothetical examples in order to dismiss the entire teaching, like when Jesus says to love your enemies. A person says, “Does that mean if someone were to …, I would still need to love them?” That then becomes an excuse for not loving people who have done things far less offensive. It would be good to rethink some of those attitudes of hate, avoidance, revenge, judgment and lack of forgiveness.

Thoughts on the verses

You ever had a conversation with a hypocrite? You know that person that acts like judge and jury over everyone else? They think they are the expert on everything. And yet it’s obvious to you and most everyone else that they do the very thing they condemn others for doing. They’re boxed in by hypocrisy which keeps them from loving others. 

What is hard to admit is that we are often the hypocrite. We tend to judge everyone else by their actions but ourselves by our intentions. Usually our judgement comes from an insecure place as we blindly seek superiority and fool ourselves into believing we are better than we really are. 

Too often we forget our desperate need for mercy from God (and others). Jesus warns against hypocrisy by remembering the generous gift of mercy and forgiveness we’ve been given from our Heavenly Father. As you made your most costly mistake, he met you with mercy. In the face of your most epic failure, he forgave.  

Action Steps

Bible: What is God showing me?  What am I going to do about it? 

Bless: Serve one person through word, action, or gift today.

Have you ever thought it would be cool to hear some C3 leaders discuss the daily verses, share about their lives and mostly just talk about nonsense?  Of course not!…even though nobody has ever thought that we are still doing it.  You can follow along with us each morning in a brand new podcast – Thursday’s KFQ Return & Resurrection Egg Nightmares.