First let’s look at a portion of scripture from Deuteronomy 6:
4“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! 5“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.This is the command of God to His nation Israel after they had been delivered from Egypt. What is God’s intent in this passage? Was it that Israel go around with His word plastered all over their bodies? I don’t think so either.
6“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8“You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9“You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Look carefully at the passage. It starts off with the greatest commandment, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength”. A pretty good start! Everything in our lives is to be done from that place of loving God first. What does God say next, “and these words…shall be in your heart”. The Word of God is supposed to be at the very core of our being. He then goes on to define what that means by telling us to teach them to our children and talk of them wherever you are.
The command that God gives about binding His word to your hand, and frontlets to your eyes and writing them on your doorpost had less to do with the actual accessories and more to do with the heart. By binding God’s word on your hand you are saying that everything you do is guided by His word. By wearing them as frontlets on your eyes you are saying that everything that you think is guided by His word. By having them on your home you are saying that your house is a house where God is the ruler. It’s all about your devotion to the God who you are to love with every aspect of your being.
Fast forward to Jesus’ time. The words from Deuteronomy had been taken very literally. A phylactery is a leather box containing scripture. This box was attached to straps which they wore around their head. They also carried another leather box containing scripture that was strapped to their left hand. The bigger your boxes the more spiritual you were considered to be.
In Numbers 15:38-40 God gives them a command about wearing tassels on the hem (the border) of their garments so that they “may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them,”. By the time of the Pharisees this command also had been taken very literally, the bigger your border the more devoted to God you must be.
Is that what the Deuteronomy and Numbers passage were about? Wearing big boxes on your head and long tassels on your robes? In context God was telling His people, “Don’t forget that I brought you here. Don’t forget to teach your children My law. Let My word be so wrapped up in your life that it is always effecting what you see and what you do. Let all your houses be houses of God. These things that you do are all to signify that you are mine and that our relationship is special”.
The Pharisees were not concerned about what God thought, they were only concerned with what the people thought about them. In their minds it was better to be appreciated and honored by the people than it was to honor God. Their actions demonstrated that they did not care for the people. If they were unwilling to honor the second greatest commandment it goes to follow that they were also unwilling to honor the greatest.
If we need more evidence that they were motivated entirely by what the people thought and not God, look at verses 6 & 7. They were all about been seen and being revered.
They lacked humility. They wanted the front seat everywhere. They were more concerned with being noticed and honored than they were about serving God. They liked the fact that people would come and ask their opinion on matters because, after all, they were the spiritual giants.
Remember the account of the Pharisee and the publican praying? The Pharisee was merely announcing his self-righteousness right before he shouts his thankfulness about not being the guy standing next to him. A perfect example of not honoring God and not loving your neighbor. Contrast them with the publican, he couldn’t even lift his eyes from the ground because of the guilt of his sin. He merely asked the Lord to be merciful to a sinner. Which one of those two really knew who God was? Was it the guy who was all about long winded prayers that did nothing more than lift himself up or was it the man who was broken looking to God for mercy.
Humility is a hard thing to achieve, they say as soon as you realize you have it you’ve lost it. Humility becomes easier when we remember that we are not our own. When we remember that we have been bought with the most precious blood. Remember the 1 Peter passage from yesterday? He commands us to submit to each other, be compassionate toward each other.
We may not wear leather boxes on our hands and heads today but most of us still carry our phylacteries, don’t we? Do we parade our service to God before men to be seen? What motivates us to do the thing that we do? Is everything that we do driven by our love and devotion to the Lord?
Remember that it is never about us and our achievements. We are to spend our lives pointing others to the one that is greater than any of us, Jesus Christ.
Be humble my friends, remember that you did not save yourself.
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