Thursday, February 28, 2008

Luke 11:44

Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.

Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees and the Scribes. It is hard, in the present day, to understand how horrifying this statement would be in Jesus' day. Contact with the dead made a person ritually unclean and unable to participate in Temple worship to God. What Jesus is telling these persons is their very actions make not only themselves unclean and unfit for worship, but also those with whom they come into contact, without these others even knowing it, and bars them all from the true worship of God. It is hardly surprising the Pharisees and the Scribes have the reaction of vvs. 53-54.

The point He is trying to make is, however, as important to us as it was to them. As we walk to Jerusalem, our inner life is just as important as our outer life, as it determines our outer actions, which can be either cleansing or corrupting to those around us.

So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you. [vs. 41]

No comments: