Focus on God's Commands Which You Keep, Not Those Which You Break or Do Not Keep

Focus on God's Commands Which You Keep, Not Those Which You Break or Do Not Keep

Bro Nicolas Tan  |  1 March 2026  |  Matthew 23:23–24

Matthew 23:23–24

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!"

The Practice of Tithing

Most of us are familiar with the concept of tithing.  But what exactly was the tithe, and why did God command it? The Pharisees were so meticulous in their observance of this practice that they even tithed their garden herbs — mint, anise, and cummin.  

To understand the full weight of what Jesus was addressing, we must go back to the foundations of tithing in God's Word.

Numbers 18:20–24

"Then the LORD said to Aaron: 'You shall have no inheritance in their land, nor shall you have any portion among them; I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel. Behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work which they perform, the work of the tabernacle of meeting. Hereafter the children of Israel shall not come near the tabernacle of meeting, lest they bear sin and die. But the Levites shall perform the work of the tabernacle of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity; it shall be a statute forever, throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance. For the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer up as a heave offering to the LORD, I have given to the Levites as an inheritance; therefore I have said to them, 'Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance.'"

Deuteronomy 14:22–26, 28–29

"You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. And you shall eat before the LORD your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. But if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, or if the place where the LORD your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, when the LORD your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place which the LORD your God chooses. And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires... you shall eat there before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. At the end of every third year you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. And the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do."

The tithe, therefore, served a rich and layered purpose: it supported the Levites who devoted themselves to serving God's house; it was tied to offerings of peace and worship before the LORD; and every third year, it was set aside specifically for the poor — the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.  Tithing was never merely a financial transaction.  It was an act of trust, of worship, and of community care.

Critically, the New Testament does not contain explicit commandments about tithing.  Yet Jesus — far from dismissing it — endorsed the practice.  

What He condemned was not the act of tithing itself, but the hypocrisy of those who fulfilled it while abandoning the very heart of God's law.

Matthew 5:18

"For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled."

Matthew 23:23

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone."

Jesus is not abolishing the law.  He is elevating it.  He dictates it — not to burden us, but to bring us back to its deepest intention: justice, mercy, and faith.

The Gnat and the Camel — A Stinging Picture

"Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!"

This single image from Jesus is one of the most piercing and ironic statements in all of Scripture. Both the gnat and the camel were considered unclean animals under Levitical law.

The gnat represents the smallest possible violation — something tiny, barely perceptible, like a fruit fly in your drink.

The camel represents the largest unclean animal imaginable.

The Pharisees were so fearful of accidentally ingesting something unclean that they would literally filter their drinking water to catch any stray insects.  They were paragons of external precision.  Yet somehow, while obsessively straining out the gnat, they were swallowing a camel whole — devouring the weightier matters of justice, mercy, and faith through their pride, their oppression of the poor, and their hollow religion performed for public approval.

Jesus paints a picture of someone working desperately to remove the tiniest insect from his cup while simultaneously consuming the largest unclean animal without even realising it.  The image is darkly comic — and deeply convicting.  Because we are all susceptible to this same trap.

We all have our comfort zones when it comes to God's commands.  Some rules feel natural to us, and we embrace them gladly.  Others — particularly those that challenge our pride, our comfort, or our lifestyle — we quietly set aside.

We become selective in our obedience, applying God's Word only where it is convenient.  In doing so, we risk straining the gnat while swallowing the camel.

What does that look like in our world today?

It might be a student who meticulously follows every school rule but looks down on classmates who don't perform as well — being technically compliant but lacking love and mercy.

It might be someone who carefully crafts a spiritual image on social media — posting Scripture, attending every church event — but whose private life tells a different story entirely.

It might be our tendency to be selective in our choices: keeping the commands we like, quietly ignoring the ones that cost us something.

And here is the sobering truth: these are precisely the habits Jesus was addressing in the Pharisees.  This is not just ancient history.  This is a warning for us today.

Jesus is not against small acts of obedience.  Fulfilling our obligations is not wrong.  What He is warning us against is doing what is right externally while the deeper values of the heart — justice, mercy, and faithfulness — remain untouched.

From the Tutor to the Father — The Great Shift

So why does this matter for us as followers of Christ?  Because our allegiance is no longer to the Old Testament law as an end in itself — our allegiance is to Christ.  The Apostle Paul makes this crystal clear:

Galatians 3:24–25

"Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."

Think of it this way.  Imagine a child enrolled with a very strict tuition teacher — one assigned by loving parents. This teacher is firm about every detail: how to dress, how to carry yourself, when to wake up, how to behave. There's a reason behind all the strictness.  It's not to crush the child — it's to prepare them, to shape their character, to ensure they don't fall behind.  

But as the child grows and matures, they no longer need the tutor standing over them with a rulebook.  They understand why.  And out of love for their parents, they do what is right — not out of obligation, but voluntarily, from within.

The Old Testament law was that tutor.  

The Old Testament law is like an X-ray.  An X-ray can show you exactly where the bone is broken — it reveals the problem with precision.  But it has no power to heal.  It can only expose.  That is what the law does. It reveals our sin, but it cannot save us from it.  Jesus is the Surgeon — the One with the power not just to diagnose, but to mend.

Matthew 5:17

"Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill."

Christ does not abolish the law.  He fulfills it — completely, perfectly, and finally.  And now, because of Him, something even more profound takes place:

Hebrews 8:10

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people."

The law is no longer written on tablets of stone.  It is written on our hearts.  This is not mere compliance — this is transformation.  This is not an obligation to be managed — it is a love to be lived.  And that changes the very nature of how we give, how we obey, how we serve.

From Obligation to Love — The Covenant of the Heart

There is a profound distinction here that we must not miss.  An obligation is a contract — you fulfill the terms because you have to.  Love is a covenant — you give because you want to, because something greater than duty compels you.  The Apostle Paul captures the spirit of this beautifully:

2 Corinthians 9:7

"So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver."

The widow in Mark 12 is one of the most powerful illustrations of this truth in all of Scripture.  In a scene that must have looked utterly unremarkable to everyone present, Jesus sat opposite the temple treasury and watched the people give. The wealthy came forward and cast in large sums. Then a poor widow approached and dropped in two mites — worth almost nothing.

Mark 12:41–44

"Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.'"

The widow's gift was insignificant by every external measure.  But Jesus held it up as the greatest gift in the room. Why? Because her giving was not performance. It was not obligation. It was love — poured out completely, with full reliance on God.  It was the heart of a woman who looked at what she had and said, "All of this belongs to You."

This is what love does.  Love is limitless.  Obligation is limited.  When we give, serve, and obey from a place of obligation alone, we will always find the edges of what we are willing to do — and stop there.  But when we act from love, there are no edges.  We do not give because a rule requires it.  We give because Christ gave everything for us.

Abraham's Tithe — Before the Law, Beyond Obligation

What Abraham did gives us perhaps the clearest picture of what it means to give from love rather than law.

Genesis 14:17–20

"And the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley), after his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him. Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said: 'Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.' And he gave him a tithe of all."

Abraham had just come through an extraordinarily difficult and dangerous mission — rescuing his nephew Lot and defeating a coalition of kings.  It was a victory that by any account could have been attributed to his own military skill, his trained men, his strategy.  But on his way home, Abraham encountered Melchizedek — who served the Most High God — and in that moment, Abraham gave a tenth of everything.

There was no commandment.

There was no obligation.

Abraham gave a tithe because he recognised something absolutely essential: the victory was not his. God was the source.  God was the Deliverer.

His tithe was an act of worship — an acknowledgment that everything he had, everything he had won, everything he was — belonged to God.  He didn't give because he had to.  He gave because he understood who God was.

The connection to Matthew 23 is striking.  Abraham wasn't preoccupied with the smallest technicalities.  He honoured the weightier matters — he honoured the people of God, he honoured the Most High.  His tithe flowed from a heart that was already oriented correctly.  This is what Jesus is calling us back to.

And this is not incidental — the writer of Hebrews draws a direct line from Melchizedek to Christ, establishing Jesus as the ultimate High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.  Christ is the great example.  His teachings on justice, mercy, and faith are not optional extras to the Christian life.  They are its very heartbeat.  Our relationship with God — like Abraham's — must be one of putting God first before everything else, recognising Him as the source of every good thing in our lives.

"You Can't Handle the Truth" — A Few Good Men

To bring this home, consider the story in the film A Few Good Men.

A senior military officer — a man of fierce discipline, rigid code, and perfect military bearing — commands his marines with exacting precision.  Rules are followed.  The code is upheld.  Standards are maintained.  In his mind, the order and discipline he enforces makes his marines better — and better marines defend the nation.

But when a weaker soldier under his command is seen as a liability, the Colonel orders what is known as a "Code Red" — a disciplinary measure carried out by two soldiers.  The weak soldier dies.  The Colonel, confronted in court, erupts: "You can't handle the truth!"  He believed he was justified.  He had kept the code.  He had maintained order.

But here is the devastating verdict: the two soldiers who carried out the Code Red were found guilty — not because they disobeyed an order, but because they failed to protect the weak.  In following the letter of their military code, they violated its deepest purpose.

Are we not sometimes like these soldiers?  We keep our rules.  We maintain our religious routines.  We strain out the gnat with meticulous precision.  But somewhere in the process, we fail the vulnerable among us.  We lose our love.  We lose our mercy.  And in doing so, we swallow the camel without even realising it.

Jesus is unambiguous about what our first priority must be.  We are to ensure that justice is maintained around us — that the weak are protected, the vulnerable are seen, the forgotten are not left behind.  We are to show mercy to others — extravagantly, the way Christ has shown mercy to us.  

And we are to put our faith into action — not just belief held privately in our hearts, but lived out visibly in the way we treat people every single day.

This is not merely following a set of rules.  This is living a life of faith — the kind of faith that moves, that acts, that loves at cost to itself.

The Invitation — Live the Life

There is a quiet and dangerous temptation available to every one of us who takes faith seriously: to focus on the commands we keep, and use them to measure ourselves — while quietly setting aside the ones we break, or the ones that challenge us too deeply.

But Jesus points us in a different direction entirely.  Look at the big picture, He says.  

Don't be blinded by the precision of your external compliance while missing the heart of what God requires.  Love — sacrificial, costly, justice-seeking, mercy-giving love — is what the law was always pointing toward.

We are not called to a religion of contracts.  We are called to a covenant of love.  God does not write His law on tablets of stone anymore.  He writes it on our hearts.  And when His law is written on our hearts, it changes everything — the way we give, the way we serve, the way we treat the person beside us, the way we respond to the weak and the broken.

The widow gave everything she had.  Abraham gave a tenth from a heart that recognised God as the source.  And Christ gave Himself — completely, sacrificially, with nothing held back — so that we could be made whole.

This is the standard we are called to live by.  Not grudgingly.  Not out of necessity.  But as cheerful givers — of our money, our time, our mercy, our justice, our faith put into daily action.

"I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people."  — Hebrews 8:10

Do not focus only on what you keep and feel good about.  Do not use obedience as a shield against deeper transformation.  Let the law of God — written now on your heart by the Holy Spirit — move you beyond obligation, beyond performance, beyond selective compliance.

Let it move you into love.  Into justice.  Into mercy.  Into the kind of faith that the world around you can see and feel and be changed by.

Christ fulfilled the law. Now live it — from the inside out.

Scripture References (NKJV)

Matthew 23:23–24  •  Matthew 5:17–18  •  Numbers 18:20–24  •  Deuteronomy 14:22–26, 28–29  •  Galatians 3:24–25  •  Hebrews 8:10  •  2 Corinthians 9:7  •  Mark 12:41–44  •  Genesis 14:17–20