Majoring in Minors [9-28-25]

September 28, 2025

Luke 11:37-54

“Majoring in Minors”

We are now entering cliché destroying territory. The gentle Jesus, meek and mild trope is dead-on-arrival. As you will hear in a few moments, we will be looking at the severest warnings from Jesus. These are some fierce condemnations. They don’t fit the narrative many marginal believers and/or disobedient believers have about Jesus. Many people see Jesus through a lens of weak sentimentality. But not here. No today. As we’ll see, Jesus launches a volley of woes at people who have well-earned it.

Before we read the passage, here’s something to keep in mind:

A WOE IS NOTHING MORE THAN A CURSE THAT WARNS OF AN IMPENDING CATASTROPHE, UNLESS CURRENT BEHAVIOR IS NOT CORRECTED. DOOM CAN ONLY BE AVERTED BY SWIFT REPENTANCE.

With that in mind, here’s Luke 11:37-54:

While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.

“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”

One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.

Here’s the first thing you might want to write down:

ANYTHING BUT THE TRUTH IS DAMNING DECEPTION.

And boy, did the Pharisees love to deceive. They loved to make it look like

they were the most devout, religious, connected people to God you could ever hope to find. Keep that word, religious, tucked away. It’s an important concept. The last thing you want to do is consider yourself a religious person.

The Pharisees are all about the show. They are the original virtue signalers. What people can see. How people perceive them. Keeping up with the appearance of being religious is of utmost important. That’s why they major on the minors. Relatively easy to do. But most visible at the same time.

Take for instance verse thirty-seven. It is all about the show. Washing the hands has nothing to do with hygiene. It has everything to do with spiritual purity.

Food hygiene isn’t hard to do. In most cases, there’s a wide swath between what are and are not good food handling practices. Simple example. Last month, we ate dinner in the living room. Our son and his youngest daughter were with us. I love living room dinnertime, because I get to sit in my recliner. Well, a green bean slipped from my fork, down though the cushion, to the floor underneath my chair. I reached for it, but couldn’t get it. No big deal. I would get it later, when I had to get up out of the chair. Well, par-for-the-course, I forgot about the wayward bean.

Fast forward to the next day. Specifically, Sunday afternoon, after church. I remembered the stray green bean. No fallen soldier left behind. So, reaching under the chair, I grabbed him. I {jokingly} asked granddaughter Liesl if she wanted it. Politely declining, she suggested I eat it. Which I promptly did. To which she, as equally promptly, exclaimed, “You ate a floor bean.” And here I am, living to tell the rather sordid tale. As a side note, said floor bean was still quite tasty. Not gonna lie.

You almost have to intentionally set out to harm someone in order to harm them through unsafe hygiene practices. Are you with me on that?

The religious people…especially the Pharisees…have a specifically defined way of washing before eating. And remember, it has nothing to do with literal cleanliness. The point is, spiritually impure hands can pass spiritual impurity from food to body and then to other food. Eating unclean food will defile the innermost parts. And nobody wants their innermost parts defiled. It has absolutely nothing to do with cleanliness.

In fact, they are so majoring on the minors, that washing rituals are specifically described. Are you ready to remember what you have to do? You have to pour the equivalent of an eggshell-and-a-half worth of water over your hands. {Floor bean not looking so silly now, is it?} A rabbinic saying puts it this way:

“Eating bread without previously washing the hands is like having intercourse with a harlot.”

Ouch.

Jesus rejects such silliness by simply not doing it. Plus, he doesn’t teach it to his followers. The religious people are unable to see the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Such good news has nothing to do with majoring on the minors.

Jesus brings the good news that religion is not a virtue. And he gets fiery

about it. These “woes” have nothing to do with our more common understanding of the lament, “woe is me.” Au contraire, mon frere. Go back to how we started. Woe announces a coming doom that can only be averted by swift repentance.

Remember what we’ve already said. Religion is not a virtue. That’s what the Pharisees thought. That’s even what people think today. Somehow, by virtue of the things we do, seen and visible, we can reach a high level of nobility…a high level of goodness. “Look at how far I’ve come. Look at how much I have achieved. Look at what a great guy I am.”

Here's how Paul puts it in Romans 1:22-23:

“Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

Broadly put, people abandon belief in the One True God for things devised and constructed by men to make themselves feel religious. “I treat people like garbage, but look at how I wash my hands.” Here’s something else you might want to write down:

RELIGION BLINDS PEOPLE TO THE TRUTH.

That’s exactly what Jesus is up against here. Religion fuels pride and vanity, which produces hypocrisy. That’s never a good thing.

So what does Jesus do? He goes on the attack. He blasts them for clinging to meaningless religious trivialities that hide their inner depravity. Listen to how H. G. Wells {yes, that H. G. Wells} described it:

“{Jesus} was like some terrible moral huntsman digging mankind out of the snug burrows in which they had lived hitherto. In the white blaze of this kingdom of his there was no property, no privilege, no pride and precedence, no motive indeed and no reward but love. Is it any wonder that men were dazzled and blinded and cried out against him?”

Jesus is giving the Pharisee a way out. And by extension, he is giving all who think their religion is what will save them a way out. What Jesus offers is a way out from that which consumes all religious people. They think their traditions and practices are more important than that to which they point. How you are on the inside is eternally more important than what you

do or how you are on the outside.

As one pastor observes:

“Moralism grounds change in cleansing the outside while ignoring the inside.”

Owen Strachan

We’ve all known people for whom legalism and fundamentalism were essential to their religiosity. Perhaps some of us where there ourselves.

You know the routine. Only certain kinds of clothes are allowed. Music falls within narrowly defined boundaries. No drums. No secular songs. Certain kinds of language is off limits. No caffeine. No alcohol. No television. No make-up. Women can’t wear pants. You can’t eat certain food. Some even dictate which version of Scripture you can use. My wife listens to a podcast by a young Christian couple. He is solidly evangelical. She came out of a fundamentalist, rigid background. Bottom line, she had to relearn her understanding of the Christian faith from a Biblical foundation. It has been so freeing for her. False religion loves both symbols and rigid practices. Jesus tells us to let them go.

Again, let’s get back to what Jesus is struggling against here. What have

we heard in the earlier verses of chapter eleven? What is required of us? To love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul, and our neighbor as ourself. What else do you hear? Do you hear any rituals? Do you hear any posturing or posing? Here’s a third thing you might want to write down:

GOD WANTS YOUR HEART.

Biblical faith…not religion, but Biblical faith…is grounded in a changed heart. That means repentance from sin. That is change from the inside out. Are you with me on that? We’re talking about a new nature – a new heart and mind. It means becoming a new creation. Transformation from the inside, which transforms the outside.

That’s why Galatians 5:22-23 is crucial to remember. Paul describes the person who has been changed from the inside out:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

Jesus is asked how we can know if we are saved. How do we know we are

right with God? How can we inherit eternal life? A heart change will be seen in these character qualities. Nothing about rituals and symbolic gestures. All that man-made garbage does nothing but oppress people. Give your heart. Give your life to Jesus Christ, and then all things are clean for you. Make no mistake. You can go through all kinds a rituals and symbols and rigmarole, but if you haven’t confessed your sin, turned to Jesus, exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit, then you are still dead inside. Jesus can’t make it any clearer.

I think my favorite expression from today’s passage is in verse forty – “You fools!” I love that. Never call anyone a fool unless they are one. Lord knows, there are more than enough fools running around masquerading as believers. As Paul says in Ephesians 5:17:

“Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”

Again, what are we supposed to do? Love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. That’s what God wants us to do. Don’t get swept up in the minutiae. Don’t major on

the minors. But fix your gaze on being people whose hearts have been

truly transformed by faith in Jesus Christ and love for Jesus Christ.

I love what Christian author Randy Alcorn once said:

“GOD’S TRUTHS ARE NOT BRICKS TO THROW AT PEOPLE. THEY ARE BREAD TO FEED PEOPLE.”

How wonderful it is that Jesus, our Bread of Life, feeds us with the Bread of Truth.

May we all know, in our hearts, what it means to love righteousness; to love God; to love Jesus;; to love God’s Word; to love the truth; to love others; to love humility; to love sacrifice. May we be those kinds of people others bump up against when we go about our daily lives. Let these words from Charles Spurgeon carry us forward in faith:

“My dear friend, I am a poor sinner still, and I have to look to Christ every day as I did at the very first.”