Appearing Beautiful on the Outside

This weeks Bible Study virtues was fear of the Lord and humility. I have been thinking a lot about hypocrisy. In Matthew 23, Jesus delivered a series of woes to the Pharisees. Jesus says "Woe to you, scribe and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, 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!For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. 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. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."

Many times if we see good behavior, we think a person must be inwardly good. This is not always the case. A person can be deceptive for a time. Eventually the bad fruit will show but we can not look at behavior alone. The Pharisees on the outside looked very good. They did all the "right" things. In fact Jesus said they "appeared beautiful outwardly". Jesus compared the Pharisees to a tomb with dead men's bones. They may have looked beautiful and appeared to obey everything but inside they will filled with all evil and lawlessness.