The Friday after the Eighth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on July 31, 2026 by under
Scripture: St. Matthew 23:23-36 (NKJV)
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. 24 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’
31 “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”
Devotion
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.”
There are moments where our Lord speaks with a severity that leaves the room silent. This is one of them. These men were outwardly disciplined. They were precise; careful in visible matters. Yet Christ exposes what lies beneath the surface. “You pay tithe… and have omitted the weightier matters.”
This fits the warning of the Eighth Sunday after Trinity. False teachers are known by their fruits. And sometimes the rotten fruit is not obvious scandal. Sometimes it is religious pride: a polished exterior and a clean cup hiding corruption. That warning lands close to home for Christians. It is possible to defend sound doctrine and still let pride poison the heart. It is possible to speak truth and forget mercy. It is possible to preserve forms while neglecting faith. That is why Christ wounds with His Law. He strips away every religious mask. And then He drives sinners to the cross.
The same Christ who condemns hypocrisy also sheds His blood for hypocrites, for Pharisees, for pastors, for churchmen, for you. So repent of public sins, private sins, and respectable sins. Then hear again what false religion cannot give—forgiveness in Christ.
Collect: Grant to us, Lord, we beseech Thee, the Spirit to think and do always such things as are right; that we, who cannot do anything that is good without Thee, may by Thee be enabled to live according to Thy will; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
