Matthew 23:14 Commentary and Bible Study

The hypocrite is more guilty than other men because he shows that he knows that what he does is wrong, and yet presses ahead regardless. He has divided life into what people can see, and what they cannot see, and he is very careful to keep the two apart. He tries to stop them ever coming into contact with each other. This allows him to be one thing in secret, and to pretend to be another thing in public. In the secret sphere he can indulge all his evil inclinations, and although he knows what he does, no one else knows, and he can preserve his reputation based on the public sphere alone. He is largely untroubled by this great contradiction within him, for he works hard to suppress the activity of conscience. As long as others do not see what he really is. he can keep up this pretence. But if anyone were to expose the real nature of the person, the game would be up, and it would be hard to recreate the illusion of sincerity again. The idea that God sees all, is far from his thinking. That thought must not be allowed to take possession of him, for it would spoil all. How painful it is for the hypocrite to have his hypocrisy exposed. Therefore the scribes and Pharisees hated Christ with an intense hatred, for he did what no one else did to them. All the trouble that had taken to hide their duplicity, he exposed in a moment. He stripped off the mask which they thought was sufficient to let they play their game indefinitely, without interference.The scribes and Pharisees devoured widows’ houses. They preyed on the most vulnerable members of society – those such as the widow who had lost the husband who protected her while he was alive, and who was disempowered to defend herself. They saw the widow as someone whose property they could easily take for themselves, even though that house was the one thing that had left to them, and the loss of it would leave them destitute. This was the private side of life. But at the same time they were careful to cultivate the public side of life – the part they wanted to be admired by all. Would the Pharisee have been able to show his face in public if the world had seen the whole of what he was? Obviously not. Longer prayers in their case brought greater condemnation, says the Lord, for they were only an exaggerated cover for their greed and oppression, and they only added to their guilt. The hypocrite can play games with his conscience and try to convince himself that his long prayers are, after all, worth something, and go some way to cancelling out the debt of his sin – ‘I may do some evil in secret, but look at all the good I also do’ – but Christ says the opposite. His long prayers only increase his condemnation. They have no merit at all, for there are not genuine, but a charade. The only real purpose they serve is to prove that he knows what is right, and therefore the evil he does is all the more blameworthy.