Eight Woes, Eight Warnings (2 of 4)

The Contemporary Failure

The contemporary version of this Woe is subtler than deliberate dishonesty and more dangerous because it is harder to name. It is the use of theological language and spiritual framing to obscure what plain speech would expose.

It is the pastor who uses the language of “Calm, humble discernment” to describe what is actually avoidance of a necessary confrontation. The elder who uses the language of “grace and patience” to describe what is actually cowardice in the face of accountability. The disciple who uses the language of “I’m still praying about it” when the plain speech would be “I have decided not to do this.” The church that uses the language of “mission and cultural engagement” to describe what is actually accommodation to cultural pressure.

When religious vocabulary becomes a tool for avoiding the plain meaning of plain commitment, the Woe Three failure is present. The Sermon’s antidote is still the antidote: Let your Yes be Yes. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Religious language does not sanctify evasion. It makes it worse.

The Diagnostic Question

Is there a commitment — to God, to your spouse, to your church, to another person — that you are technically honoring while practically abandoning? Is there language you are using — spiritual, theological, pastoral — that is doing the work of obscuring rather than revealing? Say the plain thing, even if only to yourself. Start there.

WOE FOUR Matthew 23:23–24

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”

The Ancient Failure

This is the Woe that Jesus explicitly calls the neglect of “the more important matters.” The Pharisees were meticulous about the tithe — giving a tenth of even the smallest garden herbs, things so minor that the Law’s intention was probably not to extend to them at all. Their precision about small things was genuine and rigorous. And while they were precise about herbs, they were neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness — the weight-bearing pillars of covenant relationship.

Notice that Jesus does not tell them to stop tithing the herbs. “You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” The small things are not wrong. The displacement of the large things by the small things is wrong. The gnat is carefully strained out. The camel is swallowed whole. The religious system has inverted its own priorities.

The Contemporary Failure

This is perhaps the most common Woe in the contemporary evangelical church, and the hardest to see because its components are all individually virtuous.

Mint, dill, and cumin in the contemporary church look like: worship style debates, translation preferences, dress codes, secondary doctrinal distinctions, conference affiliations, dietary practices elevated to spiritual markers, political party loyalty treated as Kingdom alignment, social media engagement metrics as evidence of faithfulness, and the endless production of theological content that is consumed by the already-convinced and never reaches the poor, the broken, or the lost.

Justice, mercy, and faithfulness in the contemporary church look like: caring for the vulnerable in the community surrounding the church building, keeping the marriage covenant when it is costly, maintaining financial integrity when no one is checking, showing up for the suffering neighbor without an evangelistic agenda, telling the truth at professional cost, and the slow, unglamorous, undocumented faithfulness that builds a life of genuine godliness over decades.

The Woe Four church is meticulous about the first list and neglectful of the second. It can tell you exactly what translation it uses and has no idea how many homeless people live within a mile of its building. It can articulate a sophisticated theology of worship and has no relationship with a single person who is poor. The gnat is strained. The camel is not noticed.

The Diagnostic Question

What are the mint, dill, and cumin in your own spiritual life — the small things you are precise about while the weightier matters go quietly unattended? Name the justice issue in your community that you know about and have not engaged. Name the mercy that is required of you right now and that you are not extending. Name the faithfulness that the people closest to you are waiting for. These are the camels. Stop straining the gnats until you have seen them.

WOE FIVE Matthew 23:25–26

“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.”

The Ancient Failure

The cup and dish metaphor is the most direct image Jesus uses in Matthew 23. The outside is clean — visibly clean, ceremonially clean, publicly clean. The inside is full of greed and self-indulgence. The religious practice has been calibrated to the visible surface while the interior life has been left entirely to itself. The cup looks like it belongs in a clean house. You would not want to drink from it.

The Contemporary Failure

This is the Woe that Part Four of this volume was designed to prevent. The disciple who is living for the audience rather than the Father — who has managed the exterior of his Christian life with care while leaving the interior largely unsurrendered — has a clean cup that is full of what Jesus named: greed (the orientation of desire toward possession and consumption) and self-indulgence (the subordination of every other value to personal comfort and pleasure).

The specific contents of the contemporary cup vary by person, but the categories are consistent:

• Greed: not necessarily the accumulation of wealth, but the consistent orientation of desire toward more — more comfort, more security, more influence, more recognition — that shapes decisions while the spiritual exterior remains presentable.
• Self-indulgence: the life organized around the avoidance of discomfort and the provision of personal pleasure, even when the exterior practices (church attendance, giving, service) are maintained. The hard commands are avoided. The costly obedience is deferred. The cross-bearing is theorized rather than carried.
• Unexamined interior life: the disciple who has never seriously asked what he actually desires, actually fears, actually resents, actually loves. Whose interior world is a country he visits only in crisis and otherwise leaves unattended.