Poltiticians and Pharisees (8) - External Behaviour

The Pharisees and Teachers were with obsessed with external behaviour.

Woe to you, teachers 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 will be clean (Matt 23:25,26).

They concentrated on behaving well. The problem was that they were full of greed and self indulgence on the inside.

Politicians have the same problem, because their only tool for changing the world is new laws. However, laws are limited, because they only affect external behaviour. Laws cannot change people’s hearts.

Christians know that most evil comes out of human hearts, so the only way to get rid of evil is to change hearts. The Holy Spirit can change hearts; the law cannot. Politicians cannot change hearts, so they have to focus on changing external behaviour. This may resolve some problems, but it does not get to the heart of the issue.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness (Matt 23:27,28).

This sounds like a good description of modern politicians. They look great on television, but when their hearts are revealed, the picture is not so nice.

This is the last post on this topic for a while. I will give the Politicians and Pharisees a break until after the season of good will is over.