“Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” Matthew 23:26 NIV
In the beginning of this chapter, Jesus is talking about listening to the pharisees and religious leaders of the day. We are to follow authority but we are not follow the example of hypocrisy. Throughout the chapter at different times, Jesus talks about listening to the people in authority and telling the crowd and His disciples to do what they are told to do but to be careful not to do what they see the people in authority doing. The pharisees and the religious leaders of the day were very good at telling the Jewish people what they had to do to fulfill the law both secularly and spiritually. However, the pharisees and religious leaders were not very good at following the law and fulfilling it themselves.
Throughout the 23rd chapter of Matthew, Jesus warns against hypocrisy and how that hypocrisy was going to affect not only the person being the hypocrite but those around them. People believe that when they say to do one thing to others and then do the opposite themselves, that it is ok. For example as a parent, the thinking is that “I told my children not to smoke, so they shouldn’t smoke. But I am the parent and I can do it if I choose to. Or I don’t want my children to do it, but I have been doing it for so long, I can’t stop.” is a perfectly acceptable way to show your children how to live. I believe we all can see the flaw in that thinking.
Hypocrisy can be done in public or secret. When the pharisees were telling the Jewish people to fulfill the law and then not fulfilling it themselves in such a way that everyone knew it, they were destroying their own creditability with the Jewish people. It is hard to follow someone who tells you to do one thing and then does the opposite themselves. Some of the religious leaders were making sure that in public everyone saw that they were in the synagogue and were giving their tithing regularly, but privately they were breaking other laws such as judging others and talking about others. When people practice hypocrisy in secret, they believe that they are getting away with it and that no one knows what they are doing. Again, when it is brought into the public that the leader was only following the law publicly, their credibility was destroyed.
Even if no other person knew what the pharisees and religious leaders were doing in private, Jesus knew. God knew. We are never able to do anything in true privacy because God always knows. You cannot change only on the outside, you have to change on the inside as well. Jesus, in the verse for today, is trying to get the pharisees and religious leaders to understand this idea by using household items, a cup and a dish. The Jewish people were very concerned with cleanliness and made sure that what they had was clean, not only their items but themselves as well. So they would have understood this analogy.
Jesus tells them that if you are only going to wash the outside of a cup and the side of a dish that shows then you truly have not cleaned the entire cup and dish. The inside of the cup and the underside of the dish are still dirty and cannot be used because they are not clean. He was explaining that it doesn’t matter if you are following the laws only in public because when you are in private if you are not following the laws, then you are sinning.
By making sure that you clean the inside of the dish and cup first, you are ensuring that it will be able to be used whereas the cup and dish that are only clean on the outside are not able to be used to eat and drink out of. When we only change our outward behaviors, we really are not changing anything. We are pretending to change and the ‘pretend change’ will not last. If we want to truly change our behavior, our belief or our way of thinking, we need to change on the inside – we need to change our heart.
If you are trying to grow in your relationship with Jesus and mature in your faith, are you changing what others see only or are you changing what God sees as well? We are all going to make mistakes, and sin. The difference between truly changing and doing it all for show is what we do once we have made the mistake or have sinned. Are we ignoring it, hoping it goes away or pretending like it didn’t happen or are we addressing it, trying to make amends and let God change us? That is the true determinizing factor in change, what are you doing about it once you have messed up?
I pray that each one of us is going to God and allowing Him to change us so that we are able to be more like Jesus each and every day. As you go through your day, I encourage you to think about how you are behaving both publicly and privately. Have a wonderful day.