Matthew 23:23-24 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin… Turning to the house-old, we may see how the principle here stated holds good. Public religious services must not be made the substitute for home duties; and, again, home duties must not be pleaded as an apology for the neglect of public ordinances. Arrangements ought to be made for rightly engaging in both. The instructing of other people's children must not be allowed to keep us from giving needed attention to the godly upbringing of our own. And, again, the training of our own families should not be made a plea for exemption from all effort for the spiritual welfare of those of others. A workman meeting a friend on the street in Edinburgh, one Monday morning, said to him, "Why were you not at church last night? our minister preached an excellent sermon on home religion. Why were you not there to hear it?" "Because," was the answer, "I was at home doing it." That was a good answer, for the service was an extra one, and the man had been at church twice before. So he was right, with the third, to give his home duties the preference. But then, on the other hand, the "at home doing it" is not all, and it should be so provided for as not to take away from proper attendance on regular ordinances, otherwise the result will be that after a while religion will not be much cared for either in the church or in the home. A tardy student coming late into the class was asked by his professor to account for his want of punctuality; and replied that he had delayed for purposes of private devotion. But his teacher very properly reproved him by saying, "You had no right to be at your prayers, when you ought to have been here; it is your duty to make such arrangements that the one shall not interfere with the other." So in regard to the conflicting claims of the house. hold and the church upon you. Make arrangements for giving due attention to both, and do not sacrifice the one on the shrine of the other. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. |
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