The Weightier Matters of the Law

In His series of woes against the scribes and the Pharisees,
Jesus said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For
you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the
weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and
faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done
without neglecting the others" (Matt. 23:23). We all probably
have a tendency to neglect the important things and concentrate
upon trivial matters, so this exhortation is valuable to us in
that it reminds us that we must stop majoring on the minors and
begin concentrating on important things. This passage also helps
us to gain a good understanding as to exactly what the important
things really are.

One of the things that I like about this verse of Scripture is
that it brings these truths to full force with the use of an
extreme illustration, the tithing of mint and dill and cumin.
These are very small items, not only in size, but importance.
Jesus didn't use grain or wine or oil in this example, but mint,
and dill and cumin, which are very tiny, and which had only an
occasional use; they were mere garnishings.

Jesus indicated that, while we should take care of minor things
of this kind, we should concentrate upon the weightier matters of
the law. In their strict determination to follow every little
provision of the law, the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' day
seem to have lost track of what was really important. Yes, we
should follow all of the dictates of the Law, but let's do so in
such a way as to keep first things first. According to Jesus,
what were the priorities? He mentions justice and mercy and
faithfulness, but I'm sure that many other things fall into this
category. Love, compassion, kindness, generosity, and
steadfastness are all certainly in the same genre. And surely,
Jesus was referring here also to strength of character--the
willingness to do what is right even when it appears to be to
one's disadvantage to do so. This is what really matters. Our
thoughts, intentions, motivations, desires, and actions towards
others are more important than outward religious observances.

The scribes and the Pharisees were very proud that they were
keepers of the Law of God, as opposed to the Sadducees, or even
the gentiles of their day, who did not keep the law. Yet I have
a suspicion that in saying these things, Jesus was implying that
there were many God-fearing gentiles who were putting the scribes
and the Pharisees to shame by paying attention to such things as
justice and mercy and faithfulness. After all, these were also
the values of the ancient Greek philosophers, whose influence was
quite pronounced in the ancient Roman Empire. Socrates had lived
only about four hundred years previously, and his name was
undoubtedly a household word among many people of that time. He
was a popular hero, whose life and death provided a profound
example of the exercise of these very qualities of justice and
mercy and faithfulness. Socrates was faithful unto death, and he
lived what he taught.

What, exactly, did Socrates teach? Well, among other things, he
fervently believed that everyone should be serious about the
question as to what sort of life a person should live. Plato
recorded the teachings of Socrates in his DIALOGUES. At the very
end of GORGIAS, one of these dialogues, Socrates said, "You may
let anyone despise you as a fool and do you outrage, if he
wishes, yes, and you may cheerfully let him strike you with that
humiliating blow, for you will suffer no harm thereby if you
really are a good man and an honorable, and pursue virtue. . . .
This is the best way of life--to live and die in the pursuit of
righteousness and all other virtues. Let us follow this, I say,
inviting others to join us." Socrates lived these truths and he
did so even unto death, thereby causing the truths which he
taught to make an indelible impression upon his society, and upon
all future societies that would be influenced by Hellenistic
culture.

The story of the life and death of Socrates, as described by
Plato, Xenophon, and others, was therefore of vital importance in
shaping the values of Western civilization. Justin Martyr, the
ancient Christian Father who had been a student of philosophy
before he became a Christian, continued to wear the pallium, the
philosopher's cloak, for the rest of his life, because he saw in
Christianity the fulfillment of the very things that Socrates had
stood for. By the time of the Renaissance, people were still
talking about the life, trial, and death of Socrates as though
these were among the most important events of history. Northern
Renaissance Humanism placed a high premium upon these values, and
for that reason, sought to collect, study, preserve, and publish
the manuscripts of ancient Greek philosophy, of the New
Testament, and of the early church fathers. The primary concern
of these scholars was to return to the high values of ancient
classical civilization, and to the teachings of the Bible. The
work of these humanists laid the groundwork for the Protestant
Reformation in such an obvious way that it was soon said of one
of them, Erasmus of Rotterdam, that he had laid the egg that
Luther hatched.

But Socrates, in his own day, was hated because he had taken it
upon himself to exhort his culture to follow such principles as
justice, mercy, and faithfulness. He spent all of his time
reminding people that they should follow the dictates of
conscience even if it was to their disadvantage to do so, and the
people of his day hated this. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY
tells us that "it was . . . apparent that the values by which
Socrates lived, his indifference to material wealth and
prosperity, and his freedom from desire and ambition were
themselves a living criticism of the actual social and economic
structures of Athens. In fact, Socrates claimed the right of
independent criticism of all institutions and of politicians who
did not seem to know what they were doing or compromised their
principles." On top of all of this, Socrates felt that God was
leading him in all of this. In a polytheistic culture, he
sometimes made reference to God in the singular case. He became
such a gadfly that he was charged with corrupting the morals of
the youth with his ideas. The charge against him included the
claim that he did not believe in the state's Gods. He was found
guilty, and he was sentenced to death. He was required to drink
hemlock, a deadly poison, the standard form of execution of his
day. Socrates submitted to this sentence, even though friends
offered to help him escape from captivity. He felt strongly that
to escape was disobedience to the law, and therefore not
according to conscience.

The law provided that the accused defend themselves, and the
DEFENSE OF SOCRATES is included among the dialogues of Plato.
Here are some excerpts from his remarks at the time of his
defense: "The difficulty is not so much to escape death; the real
difficulty is to escape from doing wrong. . . . When I leave
this court I shall go away condemned by you to death, but they
[my accusers] will go away convicted by truth herself of
depravity and wickedness. And they accept their sentence even as
I accept mine. . . . I have never lived an ordinary quiet life.
I did not care for the things that most people care about--making
money, having a comfortable home, high military or civil rank,
and all the other activities, political appointments, secret
societies, party organizations, which go on in our city. . . . I
tried to persuade each one of you not to think more of practical
advantages than of his mental and moral well-being."

Socrates was an individual of rare character, who was willing to
live according to the highest principles, even if it meant death
to do so. Here are further excerpts from his defense: "For my
own part, I bear no grudge at all against those who condemned me
and accused me. . . . However, I ask them to grant me one favor.
When my sons grow up, gentlemen, if you think that they are
putting money or anything else before goodness, take your revenge
by plaguing them as I plagued you; and if they fancy themselves
for no reason, you must scold them just as I scolded you, for
neglecting the important things and thinking that they are good
for something when they are good for nothing. If you do this, I
shall have had justice at your hands, both I myself and my
children."

There is a striking similarity between certain aspects of this
passage and the comments of Jesus in Matthew 23:23. Here,
Socrates exhorts the people to scold his sons for neglecting the
important things, if, in fact, they begin to think more highly of
themselves than they ought, or if they put money or anything else
before goodness. What, exactly, are the important things? For
Socrates, according to Plato's PROTAGORAS 349b and LAWS 1:631d,
the important things included wisdom, temperance, courage,
justice, soberness, valor, and holiness.

It would be surprising if the important facts concerning Socrates
were not well known both to Jesus and to the Scribes and
Pharisees. Rome had conquered Greece, but as historians have
frequently pointed out, the Hellenistic Greek culture had
nevertheless conquered the Roman empire of which Palestine, after
all, was certainly a part. The very things about Socrates that
we have discussed here were among the most important components
of the Greek philosophy that found its way into ancient Roman
civilization.

I believe that it is for this very reason that Christianity
spread so rapidly in the first few centuries of its existence.
Missiologists of the twentieth century often seem to be at a loss
to explain why it is that Christianity has almost never spread
very rapidly in a highly developed culture, with one
exception--the time of the ancient Roman Empire. Studies of
evangelistic methods of the first century are often done for the
purpose of discovering why it was that Christianity expanded so
rapidly and easily in its earliest centuries. The answer is
really very simple. God in His sovereignty prepared the gentiles
for Christianity through ancient Greek philosophy and its
influence upon the ancient Roman world.

In view of all of this, it is quite possible--even likely--that
in Matthew 23:23, Jesus was, in effect, saying to the Pharisees,
"Look, you guys, you think you're hot stuff because you follow
even the tiniest dictates of the law, but even the gentiles are
doing a better job than you are of doing what's really
important." Something like this would have been extremely
provocative to them, and would have dealt a serious blow to their
high view of themselves in comparison to the gentiles.

But, we are in as much danger as the Scribes and Pharisees of
neglecting the weightier provisions of the law. It is very easy
to fall into the trap of concentrating upon things that are only
of secondary importance. In fact, sometimes this happens to such
a great extent that we neglect the most important things
altogether. There is a certain monumental, but very telling
illustration of this fact. Despite the overwhelming significance
of Socrates, and his centrality, not only to Hellenistic culture,
but to Western Civilization, how much attention is actually paid
to his central teachings today? The field of philosophy, which,
in ancient Greece was founded upon the love of wisdom as defined
by people like Socrates, quickly degenerated into fruitless
discussions about secondary matters, and the principles that
Socrates considered most important, and for which he died, became
little more than footnotes in the history of philosophy.

Unfortunately, as Christians, we haven't fared much better.
Throughout most of the past nineteen or twenty centuries,
theology has almost always seemed to deteriorate very quickly
into discussions over matters of secondary importance. It got so
bad in Medieval times that people really were very concerned over
such questions as how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

This is a reflection of a much broader problem that has tended to
plague even devout Christians throughout the centuries. We have
had a continual tendency to lose sight of the matters of central
importance: being kind to one another; forgiving one another,
even when forgiveness has not been sought; showing fairness; and
keeping our promises. May God in His mercy grant us the grace to
do these things first, and to let other matters remain secondary
to them.

THE WEIGHTIER MATTERS OF THE LAW
Richard M. Riss
Glenwood Presbyterian Church
Glenwood Landing, NY
March 16, 1997