Blind Guides, Dirty Cups, and Whitewashed Tombs

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Pastors, beware the danger of being religious.

What do these word pictures have in common?  Blind guides.  Dirty cups.  Whitewashed tombs.  As you may recognize, they refer to a group of ministers.  That’s right.  In Matthew 23 Jesus uses these memorable phrases to expose the true condition of a group of religious leaders who were standing in front of Him.  The tragic reality is that He may be describing us as well.  

I preached a series of messages recently from Matthew 23 entitled, “The Danger of Being Religious.”  It’s a sobering text that exposes a sobering possibility, one that is particularly relevant for members of the clergy like you and me.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”

How do you help a religious hypocrite?  What can you do for their sake, and just as importantly for the sake of those under their influence?  What could you possibly say to a hypocritical minister to help him see just how dangerous his predicament is?  This is the situation Jesus faced in Matthew 23.

Jesus used word pictures.

In Matthew 23:23-28 the Master-teacher presented three vivid word pictures to expose the precarious condition of the merely religious.  He says they are like blind guides, dirty cups, and whitewashed tombs.   

It is certainly a serious indictment, one worthy of our careful consideration, fellow pastors.  If this admonition applied to Israel’s shepherds, could it not apply to us?  Indeed, Jesus may be talking to us.  Is it possible that I too am a blind guide, a dirty cup, and a whitewashed tomb?  If so, how can I know?  In Matthew 23 Jesus identifies three indicators of the hypocritical minister.

1. He majors on minor issues (verses 23-24).

2. He cleans up the outside and neglects the inside (verses 25-26).

3. He appears righteous but is not (verses 27-28).

The blind guide – The minister who majors on minor issues

Jesus pronounces seven woes on Israel’s shepherds in Matthew 23, including this one in verses 23-24.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!”

In the Torah (in places like Leviticus 27:30 and Deuteronomy 14:22ff) God instructed His people to give Him a tithe of what their fields produced.  This included corn, wine, and oil.  What did He have to say about spices like mint, dill, and cummin?  Very little, and that’s the point.  The Pharisees did more than God commanded to show their seriousness.  

The ministers standing in front of Jesus prided themselves in their diligent devotion.  They gave God even the most insignificant of things, while failing to give Him the most important things.  

And Jesus told them so.  The Savior’s words are quite convicting.  He makes it clear that Pharisees (and those who think like the Pharisees) need to major on major issues.  “You should have practiced the latter,” said Jesus. In other words, you should have given God justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

But how do you measure that kind of giving?  You really can’t.  How much justice did you give God last week, my friend?  How much mercy?  It’s hard to quantify, so it’s easy to overlook.  Yet it’s essential, according to Jesus.  He said, “You should have practiced the latter.”

Yet He also says, “Without neglecting the former.”  We must not miss the necessary balance here.  Christianity is not about externals only, but it does include externals.  

Beware of the deception of selective obedience.  The Lord uses a captivating (even humorous) word picture to address this problem in verse 24. “You blind guides!  You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel?”  Just imagine the scene.  There’s a person walking along, taking great care to prevent himself from swallowing a tiny bug, yet all the while munching on a large camel hoof!

Think of it as “pastoral nitpicking”.  Some ministers are sticklers for details, yet they’re missing the heart of what the Lord desires from them.  Like the Pharisees, they are hung up on gnats and choking on camels.

My pastor friend, we may be obeying God’s Word in many areas.  That’s good.  Maybe.  But is there any area in our lives where we are disobeying God?  Be honest.  Is there presently any command you’re neglecting, any responsibility you are ignoring?  Are you justifying this disobedience by pointing to your meticulous obedience to God in other areas of your life?

The dirty cup – The minister who cleans up the outside and neglects the inside

Jesus’ words in verses 25-26 are stunning.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”

In his book, Evangelical Pharisees, Michael Reeves observes on page 63, “The Pharisees had a remarkable ability to look like what they were not.” That’s what happens when you focus on surface issues.  You come across, at least initially, as being a person who is quite godly, though in fact this is certainly not the case.

Jewish law had a lot to say about uncleanness.  The issue wasn’t dirt so much as ceremonial rightness.  The long list of rules was meant to ensure rightness before God.

But can obedience to a rule (or a thousand rules) make a sinful heart clean?  Not at all.  Rules and rituals may look impressive, but they lack the power to change the heart.  Yet this was the approach of the first century Pharisees, as it is far too many ministers in our day.

Jesus said first clean the inside of the cup.  “First” indicates where we start as well as what we emphasize.  True godliness works “inside-out.”

That’s not to say that the outside doesn’t matter.  Think of the pastor who says, “Well, as long as my heart is right, that’s all that matters.”  Not necessarily.  If his heart is right with God, it will show up in external actions.

Friends, we must beware of two erroneous approaches to shepherding.  On the one hand, some ministers, like the Pharisees, settle for simply cleaning the outside of the cup.  They emphasize that being a Christian means you clean up your act.  Of course, this is mere morality.  

Yet on the other hand, other ministers settle for a deficient internal cup-cleansing that doesn’t affect the outside.  “Faith is a personal thing,” they stress.  And it ends up being so personal it has little effect on daily life.  While such a minister carries his Bible to the pulpit on Sunday, he fails to teach his people how gospel truth connects to Monday through Saturday.

That shouldn’t be.  Jesus said, “Clean the inside of the cup, and the outside also will be clean.”  There is a connection between the two.  If the inside is clean, the outside will be clean, too.  And the One who makes it clean deserves all the glory.

The whitewashed tomb – The minister who appears righteous but is not

Consider carefully yet another pronouncement of woe from Jesus.  This one appears in verses 27-28.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.  So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

According to Jesus, this is the tragic condition of a hypocritical minister.  He’s clean on the outside, impressively so, just like an ornate tombstone glistening in the sunlight. Yet he’s corrupt on the inside, “full of dead men’s bones”.  It’s a case of “what you see is not what you get.”

C. S. Lewis said there are two kinds of sinners that he called the Animal self (the fleshly sinner) and the Diabolical self (the spiritual sinner).  “The Diabolical self is the worse of the two,” said Lewis.  “This is why a cold, self-righteous [person] who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But of course, it is better to be neither.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, page 92)

The problem of the Pharisee isn’t so much the standard he keeps, but why he keeps it.  In my church world in Appalachia, I hear a push-back from time to time that says, “If I have standards and talk about standards, I’m a legalist.”  But that’s not true.  I’m a legalist if I think that keeping my standards contributes one ounce to my right standing with God.

This is why the Pharisee is in trouble.  He thinks he is righteous, and the reason he thinks he’s righteous is because he does the right things.  But it’s merely external, and on the inside, unseen to the naked eye, his heart is full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

I’m struck by the fact that the people Jesus called blind guides, dirty cups, and whitewashed tombs were the most devout, upstanding, religious people in first century Judaism.  These were the Bible men, the shepherds, the spiritual leaders of the day.  I wonder what He would say to us, my friend.

A three-minute ministerial action plan

Before moving quickly to your next task in the day, I encourage you to invest the next 180 seconds as follows.

1. Spend sixty seconds reading (slowly), reflecting on, and praying David’s prayer in Psalm 139:23–24. “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”

2.  Spend another sixty seconds doing the same with Psalm 19:14. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.”  Again, read it slowly and turn each phrase into a prayer.

3.  Take another sixty seconds and meditate on Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11:28–30. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Keep in mind that this invitation comes from the Savior Himself, fellow pastors, and it applies to us just as it does to our people.  Let us come to Him.

©2025 Brad Brandt. All rights reserved. Used with permission.