Editorial Note: This is a transcript of an audio recording of a Bible study discussion. It has been lightly edited by Claude AI to correct misspellings, add paragraph breaks, form complete sentences where needed, and mark conversational banter and interjections. The text otherwise reflects the spoken content as closely as possible. Scripture quotations are highlighted in block-quote format. A full list of scriptures referenced appears at the end of the document.

Real Change: Inward Change — Outside of the Cup, Inside the Cup

The Outside and the Inside

This has an application — making clean the outside. For example, there are programmes which monitor your activity online and pass it on to somebody else when you make an infraction. Well, that is an outside thing, and you are being asked to orientate yourselves to it. I suppose you could say it is making the inward manifest, but it deals with a behaviour. Behaviour, you could say, is an outward thing, but the root of that behaviour — that is where it is at. The heart. The heart of things.

And so, as we work, I suppose there is always a temptation to deal with the outside: to polish the outside with ourselves, and perhaps to polish the outside with others, without dealing with the inward.

This is also a gift that says: if you want real change, real change has to be inward change. It is a cleansing that is needed in the inward parts, that then makes clean the outward parts, as it were.

The Mind as the Starting Point

I was listening — as I was ducking and diving through windy roads on a detour that gave me ten extra minutes yesterday — I was listening to Myron Golden talk about pork, how he just cannot even think of having pork touch any of his food. His understanding had been changed about what a pig is. Or a prawn — a prawn is a roach of the sea. His mind changed, and the mind is an inward thing.

So he is never going to have his outward plate defiled with any of these things, because he has changed his mind. Many people think of bacon and think: mmm, the height of deliciousness. He is saying: I have made this change in my mind, and what used to be delicious and lovely to me is now totally out of bounds.

You know, if we can get people to hate — however we do that — what they previously loved or valued… I valued a kind of humour. Reeves and Mortimer were the names of the two comics. Essentially, what they were doing was making fun of life and reducing everything to nonsense. There was nothing smutty or dirty about it really, but it was just that reducing of things to nonsense. I thought it was the cleverest thing in the world, but of course it was foolishness — and really awful — to reduce God’s world and God’s life to ridiculousness.

I had to change my mind about that, and I have changed my mind about that. Now the thought of it is… well, I have put a different value upon it.

Ravening and Wickedness

As it was said: your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. And so, as we deal with church leaders who are not like the church leaders that we have — put it this way — we should not be surprised as we come across some church leaders, some religious leaders, who are absolutely full of ravening and wickedness. We should not be surprised at that.

[Banter/Interjection: “How do you pronounce it — is it ‘ravening’? I always thought it was ‘ravening,’ like ravenous.” “Ravening, really.” “I thought it was, but I can even remember it now.”]

He Who Made the Outside

“Did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also?” — Luke 11:40

What is this all about? Well, the Pharisees are positing that to their God belongs the outside, but to them — by implication — belongs the inside. Jesus was correcting this. It is like the existentialist who says that man has being but no essence — as if they make their own essence, as if they are self-made on the inside.

What is an existentialist? An existentialist is somebody who believes that man has being but no essence. Man is, but he fills in the blanks as to what he is. This is seen very clearly in the transgender movement. A man may be six foot seven with male chromosomes and so on, but he fills in the blanks of what he is at essence — “I am a five-year-old girl” or whatever it may be.

It can also be expressed as being uninfluenced by anything apart from the biological urges of the moment. An existentialist believes, you might say, that freedom is to be uninfluenced by anything except the biological desires or urges of the moment. All they have is the now. People who talk about “being in the now” — that is the existentialist tempo.

That is what you see in the movies: two seconds after meeting each other, they start kissing. What they are demonstrating is: this is freedom. We do not think about the consequences. We are not bound by time. We are not bound by tradition. We are not bound by anything.

Man-Made Rules vs. God’s Law

“Did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also?” — Luke 11:40

This is what outward religion does, is it not? Think of what Mrs Jones will say. Whereas the true Christian, as they approach sanctification and their children, for example, will be concerned about what is going on on the inside. For the churchgoer, the Pharisee, the hypocrite — all that mattered was the outside.

[Interjection: “You’re disgracing me.”]

What we have here, as we know, is this: the Pharisee marvelled that Jesus had not first washed before dinner. There was a rule they had created. I do not think man-made rules and God’s law can coexist in the same place. There will be tension, and either one will give way to the other, or vice versa.

[Group discussion: We were just talking this morning about the idea of staying at home until you are married. Is that…]

That is absolutely a prime example. We are thinking about Lydia, who was a head of household, and we are thinking about the gross misinterpretation of Proverbs 31 — which had this woman chained to the kitchen somehow, rather than being a businesswoman who is, by definition, outside the house.

[Interjection: “Yes, it’s impossible to miss that.”]

This is the importance of rejecting such additions to the word of God. Any addition to the word of God that functions as a law of man — well, someone has to benefit, you would think. What is the purpose?

When you find out that in some of these families where daughters are being kept at home, they are being abused — it makes sense that there would be an advantage to the father to keep his daughters from going out and interacting with society, because he wants to abuse them. When you find that out, you understand the purpose of this man-made rule: you are not allowed to leave the home until you are married.

But only God has law-making powers. We know this in relation to the state. It is a very easy equation: man cannot make laws, and the man in the state who makes laws is thereby seeking to be as God — knowing or determining for himself what is right or wrong.

[Interjection: “That’s really good.”]

So the wicked man who says daughters must stay at home, without any biblical authority — there may be instances in which that is the right thing to do, but to make it a rule puts that man in the position of God and gives him the control that God alone has.

[Interjection: “Very interesting. But they use scripture to create this doctrine, so to speak.” “Of course they do.”]

Woes to the Pharisees

“Woe unto you Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” — Luke 11:42

What we should expect from those who unrepentantly hold this position…

[Brief group discussion: “Well, they did put out an article distancing themselves from the doctrine, didn’t they? Or did I imagine that?” “I know they were working on something with Shelby, but I don’t know that it ever got out.”]

They need to distance themselves in order to remove that woe.

Daughters, Singleness, and Providence

[Extended group discussion — personal and pastoral in nature, loosely related to the teaching on man-made rules. Included here as context for the group’s application of the text.]

So, let us say the Lord blessed us with a daughter. Would you encourage her, as a teenager, to begin planning to have her own home, as you would a son?

[Interjection: “Hardly. Hardly.”]

But go back to the norming norm — the norm is whatever the Word of God says. You train her in this skill and that skill and the other skill, according to her aptitudes, outside of the university system. She is going to be very capable.

But what if God does not call her to marriage? That is not baloney as a question, but to say they are not called to marriage — it is generally baloney. If they have any desire to be away from their own home, to have their own life, forget about it — they are not called to be single.

[Interjection: “But I was called to be single for twenty-plus years. In which case, I needed to be able to…”]

In the providence of God, we were held back from our normal duties by various wicked practices and doctrines and ideas. That is the way I would characterise it, rather than saying you were called to be single.

[Further personal discussion regarding a specific family situation and the division of household responsibilities among daughters. Included as a pastoral aside.]

In God’s providence, both our cases were absolutely and completely without question part of his plan. This is not a mistake. There are many things which are wrong — sometimes very evil — which happen within God’s plan, which God then redeems.

And yes, you will have to teach whatever daughter or son the Lord may bless us with that you are going to have to be content for a certain period. That is a different thing from being called to singleness.

[Discussion continues regarding a specific situation — name redacted for clarity — about whether an adult daughter who has her own income should establish her own home.]

I think if scripture does not speak to that directly, then… None of us would say Christine is in sin. None of us would think of saying, “Christine, go back to your parents’ house.”

So I do not have the answer there. I do not know what the cutoff date is. Unless we can come up with some scriptural rationale which gives the parent jurisdiction and perpetuity over the non-married adult child, then we have to say: if she wants it, she has enough money to do it the right way, then go ahead. It may be that there is something else going on.

But it is hard for everybody at the moment. I would not say an absolute no to that at all.

[Interjection — clarification from a female participant: “I wanted to go back and just clarify something — you said I was mother to my siblings. I would consider myself to have been more of a nanny figure, a big sister, rather than…” “I mean, they called me the second mother.” “So yes, I understand what you are saying. But my mama was the one who oversaw their schoolwork, told them what to eat, what to wear. I was very sick, especially in Tennessee. We had eight children — that is a lot. It was a tag team.” “I am just relaying what I understood from what you told me.” “I know, but I wanted to clarify — we are also talking about sixteen years, and I was not homebound the whole sixteen years. Only six of those.” “She lived vicariously through you. You did the homesteading, which was her dream. She lived through your labour.” “Yeah, the labour — for sure. It was so messed up. Wisdom from the world is confusion.” “Where there is self-seeking… that happened before we ever had more children. She did the same thing with Tania. She would put all these burdens on Tania, and never helped Tania with the extra work.”]

The Way Out: Give Alms

[Returning to the text — group signals they are ready to wrap up.]

[Interjection: “Can we pause there? That is a lot to take in. I feel like I cannot take in any more.” “Okay, we will stop at verse 42 then.”]

The alms — it seems — are key.

He says: you are in this position. I am offering you a way out. So he is the guide. He has the plan. What is the plan?

“But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you.” — Luke 11:41

It is almost as though this is what will purge you: give. The inward parts are cleansed through giving. And this is an idea that seems very far from us.

He also says — you know, when you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you and let everybody know. He said this in the Sermon on the Mount:

“But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” — Matthew 6:3

Give, and do not seek to be seen. That is the posture.

What Was Their Sin?

What was their ravening and wickedness? I believe — I want to suggest — that it was holding tightly to their possessions. Alms are given to the poor. So they were withholding their own goods from the poor because of their inward ravening and wickedness.

This would be a manifestation of inward change: that you have seen something change within you, and this is the connection between the inward and the outward. That connection is broken in Greek thinking — Hellenistic thinking, Neoplatonic thinking — which divides man into mind on one hand, body on the other, spirit on the other. Whereas the biblical picture gets to the heart of it:

“Man became a living soul.” — Genesis 2:7

Yes, we have lungs. Yes, we have a heart. If the heart goes bad, the lungs suffer. If the lungs suffer, the heart goes bad. They are related as a unity.

And he is saying: if I see you giving alms, I know something has happened — your heart has been healed. So that would be a sign that your inward parts have been cleansed.

Questions for Application

Now — how much do we give to the poor and how much do we interact with the poor? Who are the poor among us? These are questions to ask. Do we fall under that same condemnation? Was this particular to the Pharisees only? Or is it a generalised thing for religious hypocrites? Or is it something we should all be far more conscious of?

Because a lack of almsgiving means… Now, things are complicated because of the welfare state — everybody gets something, it would appear. But we might ask ourselves: where are the poor, and how can I give to them? It might be worth thinking about people who are part of the underclass here — whose parents have been on welfare all their lives, and as a result of no initiative at all, their language skills are at a low level; just desperate cases. How can we help? It may be a long-term thing, but how could we seek to foster that?

And if we do end up spending some time in Africa — well, you are going to have the poor all around you. That will not be such a burden to find them.

“But woe unto you Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” — Luke 11:42

I was thinking about this — the love of God. The love of God is, it would seem, directed towards the poor in particular. He loves the widow and the orphan. He is their sponsor.

So we could think: okay, what about widows and orphans? That is somewhere we could minister. I think our desire to help Solomon, for instance, would fall into this category — that God loves people who are in a particularly vulnerable situation.

Pass over judgment — the New King James says justice.

“Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.” — Luke 11:46

So they are being unjust. What we have here is the Pharisee marvelling that Jesus had not first washed before dinner. There was a rule they had created, and man-made rules and God’s law cannot coexist in the same place. There will be tension, and one will give way to the other.

Closing Observation

Only God has law-making powers. The tithe of mint and rue — who does that serve? To whom does the tithe go? He is asking us to think about the object, the people to whom we give. Whereas tithing seems to be — well, who are they giving it to? And the love of God is manifested in our love for others.

“These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” — Luke 11:42

Scriptures Referenced