Bad Influence
Scripture
“Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which people walk over without knowing it.”
~Luke 11:44 ,NIV
Quote
“A painted fire looks real but it produces no heat.”
~Thomas Brooks
My Thoughts
Currently I am reading THE LIFE OF CHRIST IN STEREO. It is a blend of the synoptic gospel so that none of Jesus teaching come up more than once. Today I read Luke 11:37-44 and when I came across verse 44, I thought to myself “I have never understood this verse and I want to understand.” There are some keys: first Jesus is talking to the Pharisees. The Pharisees were religious but they were hypocrites. So remember, Jesus is speaking to the hypocritical Pharisees: the second key is that the Jews practiced ceremonial cleaness and one of the things that made them ceremonially unclean was to come near a grave. If a person were buried underneath the soil and the grave was not marked, a person could literally walk right over a dead body and become unclean. If you were ceremonially unclean, you could not worship, you could not enter the courts of the Temple.
When Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are like unmarked graves, He is referring to their hypocrisy. They are defiling others without them being aware of what is going on. In other words, the Pharisee are deceitful about their sin, they keep them buried so that people did not see the rot, putrification and decay. They are corrupting others with their evil influence and the people who are following them are not even aware of what is going on.
I think there are some lesson here:
- Be real, confess your sin and do as little pretending as possible. There is nothing attractive about brutally honest people. “Wow, that is by far the ugliest dress you have ever worn; and your hair looks like you being riding on the back of a motorcycle without helmet through a cedar thicket.” That is over the top. I am not suggeting that we articulate every thing we think but don’t pretent to be better than you are. Work on your integrity daily. We want to be real, not hypocrits who pretend for vain reasons.
- Every now and then we need to do like the lepers and stop and hollow “unclean”. I did this with two young men yesterday. I apologized to them for not being a good influence and told them I wanted to do better. It is just my way of saying “Boys you are near a grave, be careful where you step.” I do not want to lead these young men astray. I do not want to be a corupting influence on them.
- It is possible to sin and not be aware of it. When a Jew stepped on an unmarked grave, they were unclean but since the grave was unmarked, they were not aware of their uncleaness. Not all sins are transgressions. There are sins of ignorance. We are not in rebellion, we simply made a wrong turn and it has not dawned on us yet. It is very possible that when you get down the road a piece, you will realize you make a mistake.
Extra
Running a little late again today. Hope you enjoy the blog.