Enjoy Life, Enjoy God
INSIDE-OUTSIDE
March 22, 2013
It occurs to me my grandmother and mother were so wrong about how little boys are to wash their hands before they come to the table.
"Woe to you teaches of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also well be clean."
--Matthew 23:25,26 TNIV
Matthew 23 contains the Seven Woes, where Jesus decries the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, nasty stuff! Yet it's all about inside-outside. Scrubbing the outside doesn't clean the filth inside. But that's exactly how we try to do it. Fools!
There is no soap or makeup that can make clean on the outside what is squalor on the inside. God knows that! When will we? This would have been handy information for my grandmother and mother; I would have spent a lot less time hand-washing!
Joyfully,
Dale Patterson