Scripture Daily

Context No. 3386 of 4322 · Luke

Context · Reflection

Luke 16:14-18: in context

14The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they scoffed at him. 15He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts. For that which is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. 16“The law and the prophets were until John. From that time the Good News of God’s Kingdom is preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. 17But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tiny stroke of a pen in the law to fall. 18“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. He who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.

The Pharisees, who loved money, scoff at Jesus, and he exposes the root of it: you are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

There is a sobering reversal here. The things people admire and reward, wealth, status, self-justifying respectability, can be precisely what God finds detestable, because he sees the heart behind the polished exterior. The Pharisees looked righteous and successful; God saw their love of money and their need to justify themselves before others. It is a warning against measuring ourselves by human approval. What wins applause from people is no proof of standing with God, who is not fooled by the exalted image but reads the heart beneath it. What we want others to admire may be the very thing God does not esteem.

Do I measure myself by what people admire, or do I remember that God sees the heart, and that what is exalted among men may be an abomination to him?

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