Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Matthew 23:24 I think Jesus was dealing with the superficiality of the doctrines of the Pharisees. I touched on this in my previous post, Chasing Symptoms. Early in my ministry I found myself getting angry with people over the same things, over & over again. When the light of God began to shine on that tendency, I found out I was getting angry because they were drawing attention to flaws in my own character, things I just didn't want to deal with. We all do it @ times, no matter how long we've been a believer. The problem is, we never take an honest look @ what's actually happening when we get angry. We never get beyond the symptom to see the underlying disease. The problem isn't the anger itself. The problem lies in why we got angry. I may get rid of the anger, but if I don't get to the source of that anger, another symptom will pop up somewhere. It may manifest in sarcasm, or a holier than thou attitude; but I'll find myself dealing with a brand new symptom right down the road. That's what Jesus was dealing with here, the tendency of the Pharisees to focus all their energies on superficial things, & never deal with the real sin issue @ all. In His teachings, Jesus went beyond the law to point out the underlying reality there. He tended to get to the heart of things. That's what we need today folks, teaching that gets to the heart of the problem, the diseases behind all of these symptoms.
