Pastors Don’t Do This 11 Become Pastor Pharisee (Part 10 – Value the Outer Shell More than the Inner Core)

Jesus used a very powerful illustration to show you what a religious Pharisee looks like. He said “you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and excess” (Matthew 23.25). Imagine I served you a cup of coffee, and the outside of the cup had been very carefully cleaned, but inside the cup, as you drank the coffee, you start to realize is very dirty indeed. The cup looked good from the outside, and to the casual observer it looks like a clean cup, a mature cup, a godly cup, a pure cup. But as you get closer, you find out that the outside has been cleaned but the inside is still filthy.

I have sadly met few ministers like that. As you draw close to them, you find out that on the pulpit they look amazing, flowing in the gifts, teaching deep revelations, making the crowds happy – but they cannot be kind to people, they are rude to the waiter at lunch, they make coarse jokes, they are bitter at other ministers, they are inappropriate around women, they get offended easily, they are touchy over finances. In short they are ridiculously immature and not like Jesus.

It makes me sad every time I see it. Thankfully it does not happen often but it is the same feeling you would have drinking the coffee out of the “clean” cup and then finding out it is dirty after all.

The reason it happens is that the Pharisee Pastor is not living for Christ, but living for ego. Their whole life is about show. Cleaning yourself is hard work, so they only do half a job – but they only clean the bits on show. They only work on how people perceive them. They do not work on every part of their character.

Jesus thankfully gave us the solution. He said “clean the inside of the cup first so the outside might be clean”. Go and sort your attitudes, go and sort out how you treat people who cannot go any favours for you, go and sort out what you are doing when no one is looking. Stop being a hypocrite or you will be a rubbish pastor. You might have an average career as a travelling speaker, but it will always be hollow inside.

Selah.