This made me think of a recent article by Harold Vaughn on being a Pharisee:
[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=19909&forum=34&3]You Might Be a Pharisee If...[/url]
I highly recommend that article; it is very good.
And this verse came to mind:
[i]James 1:27
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and [b]to keep himself unspotted from the world.[/b][/i]
And these verses were in the context of Jesus addressing the Pharisees and their hypocrisy:
[i] 15There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.
16If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.
17And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.
18And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;
19Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?
20And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.
21For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
22Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
23All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
Mark 7:15-23
[/i]
We have to go to the Scriptures and let them be our standard. Firstly, to examine what Jesus told the Pharisees and the warnings He gave them, and secondly what is the standard in God's Word for godly living?
Those are a few things to consider...
~Joy :-)
