Luke 11:42 (NIV) “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.”
This statement of Jesus shows just how exacting the Pharisees were in their commitment to all of God’s commandments. The law requires that a tithe, a tenth of all of a person’s increase, including what grows from the ground. But some of the Pharisees were so precise that rather than weighing out small crops like herbs and spices and seeds (also see Matthew 23:23), they laboriously counted them out, one for God, nine for them.
What seems odd to some people in this statement is that Jesus does not condemn this extra measure of exactitude. He does not pronounce woe on these men for being legalistic in their manner of tithing, neither here, nor in any of the parallel passages in the other gospels. Instead, the Pharisees are condemned for neglecting other parts of the law, specifically justice, and the love of God, loving Him with all of themselves, as well as showing genuine love to others. Those requirements are just as much God’s commands as tithing is, but was being overlooked in the shadow of them doing tithing really precisely.
Jesus’ point here is not that tithing is unnecessary, or legalistic, or even “Old Testament”. He could have said, “You should have practiced justice and the love of God, and forgot about tithing, since that is going away soon.” But He didn’t say that. Instead, His instruction was to practice the latter, (justice and the love of God), without leaving the former (tithing) undone. In other words, both are requirements of the law, and both need to be done, and with equal passion.
Today many teach that justice and love for God and others are necessary for Christians, but that tithing is not. They base this on the idea that Jesus affirmed the former things, but never said that tithing is still required. However Jesus affirms tithing in very clear language right here, and never at any future point is quoted as saying, “Starting now, tithing is not necessary.”
But Jesus’ key teaching here to the very detail-oriented Pharisees is not specific to tithing. The underlying teaching is that God’s requirement for His people is that they be obedient to all of God’s commands, instead of picking and choosing a few to do really well. God never designed His commands with a “pick one from column A and three from column B” kind of mentality. Instead, the law, all of God’s commands, including those given specifically in the New Testament, are a reflection of God’s character, who He is, and who His people must be to live in His presence.
The beauty of the new covenant is not that God has no requirements in it for His people. It is that God’s people can now be transformed by the presence of the Holy Spirit (Ezekiel 36:26-27, Romans 12:1-2) so that we more naturally obey God’s commands instead of having to be motivated by external rewards and punishments. In this way the whole of God’s law, encapsulated in the two greatest commandments (Matthew 22:34-40) can be kept as a whole by His people.
Father, it really is easy for us to adopt an either-or, or “this not that” kind of mentality when it comes to Your commands. Thank You for reminding me that it’s not about a list of rules to be obeyed to try to earn our salvation, or to earn bonus points with You, but that Your laws and commands for us spring from Your own character and our need to align ourselves with Your character, so that we can live as Your people, and as children of light. Amen.