Bible Knowledge Commentary
23:23–24. The fourth woe related to the pharisaic practice of meticulously tithing all their possessions. They went so far as to carry the practice down to the smallest spices from plants: mint, dill, and cummin. While meticulously following the Law in this area (Lev. 27:30), they failed to manifest the justice, mercy, and faithfulness demanded by the Law. They were majoring on minors, straining out a gnat, while minoring on majors, swallowing a camel. Being so busy with small details, they never dealt with the important matters. Jesus was not saying tithing was unimportant; He was saying they were completely neglecting the one area at the expense of the other. They should have been doing both. Since they were not, they were blind guides.
Pillar New Testament Commentary
23. Jesus reverts to the fuller formula, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” and proceeds to the way these people went about their tithing. Tithing was an old custom (Gen. 14:20) and the law laid it down that a tenth should be given to the Lord (Lev. 27:30–33; Num. 18:21, 24; Deut. 12:5–19; 14:22–29, etc.), which presumably means a tenth of all one’s income. Tithes were paid to the Levites (Num. 18:21), who in turn paid to the priests a tithe of the tithes they received (Num. 18:25–28). The Pharisees evidently took the practice very seriously and carried it through in minute detail. They paid to the Lord a tenth of small garden plants like mint and dill and cummin. This indicates a determination to fulfil the tithe regulations with minute accuracy—not the smallest plant was to be overlooked (Luke says that they tithed “every herb,” Luke 11:42); everything that belonged to the Lord was scrupulously to be paid to him. The tithing of small herbs was probably going farther than the tithing laws intended, but there was nothing wrong in doing it (as Jesus agrees). The trouble was that in their concern that these small matters be properly attended to, the Pharisees neglected weightier matters that were much more important. These more important duties were made much more plain in Scripture than the minutiae on which the Pharisees concentrated their attention. So Jesus selects the qualities of justice (Gen. 18:19; Prov. 21:3, etc.), mercy (which is said again and again to have been shown to his people by God and which God likewise requires of them, Mic. 6:8; LXX has the same word as that used here), and faithfulness (Prov. 28:20; Hab. 2:4). Calvin sums this up with “Briefly, then, the sum of the Law comes back to love.… Christ typically refers the real test of sanctity to brotherly love” (III, p. 57; Luke, of course, has “the love of God” in his equivalent of this statement, 11:42); Robinson explains this wording as “possibly due to an alternative rendering of the original Aramaic”). It is fatally easy to be preoccupied with minutiae and to overlook what is important. That was the error of the Pharisees. Jesus does not find fault with them for what they did, but for what they left undone.
I currently see the Church omitting the greatest commandment standing on the phrase of "faith alone". We have sought out every intricate detail of soteriology, understanding what it is God does in His salvation for us, yet leave out the fruit of love. We have brought the gospel to an empty confession securing our fire insurance, and retain no change in our life of love for God or others.
We major on understanding and systematizing God's word but we neglect applying it to our lives.
