Empty Whitewashed Tombs

Those who do things to be seen by others “...are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” Matthew 23:7

Hypocrisy always involve treating people poorly in order to materially enrich self and fellow corruptors. The Pharisees enriched themselves via a Sin Tax. Instead of addressing root causes, they collected taxes for offenses in order to artificially absolve one of their “wrong-doing”.

Jesus threatened their business model by forgiving people and healing them, for free.

Contemporary hypocrites claim that only by accepting Jesus as your Savior can you be free from sin. This is identical to the Pharisees business model: perform an action in order to achieve/receive what you already are/have.

Every miracle that Jesus did healed people and restored members to community, allowing people to carry out the greatest command as stated in Leviticus 19:9-18. The more rules the Pharisees created, the more money they made from sin tax collection. And if you couldn't pay the tax, then you wound up in a debtor prison. That'll teach to not break the law.

But in the history of the world, no law has ever resulted in good behavior because hypocrisy is baked in. Only by doing unto others as you would have them do unto you can you serve God. You've freely received, so you must freely give.

Love is the only thing that requires one to give it away in order to claim to 'have' it. The more you give, the more you have to give.

Love creates miracles equal to and greater than Jesus (John 14:12). In Mark 9:38-41 we find out that non-followers were doing miracles in Jesus name. In Matthew 8:5-13 we find that a Roman Centurion (in command of 100 soldiers) requests and receives remote healing for his servant. This was a guy who was killing Jews as part of his job.

Jesus epitomizes non-judgment, demonstrating that the Universe doesn't operate via manmade rules and regulations, but by faith in the unseen. Nobody is ever satisfied by what they see; there's always opportunity to make your immediate surroundings better.

“But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments.” Matthew 23:5

Those who do things to be seen by others “...are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” Matthew 23:7

Churches that focus on the Salvation message do not believe in miracles nor greater works and thus are empty whitewashed tombs. There's no life in them, just the appearance of being a dynamic place. They dress nice, act nice, but beyond that they are completely unaware that miracles are the default modus operandi of anyone who believes so.

And worse, these churches believed the COVID lockdown was necessary. Church membership has dropped dramatically since 2020. Seems the megachurches that toe mainstream theology have regular attendees.

I recently attended a large Baptist church. On Saturdays they host a mega farmers market. The busiest part is the organic produce section which has the best, freshest selections I've seen so far.

On Sundays, you can poison your temple with the toxic synthetic Creamer to along with your coffee. Those wearing church lanyards socialized among themselves and failed to engage me. They would surely ignore Jesus were He to enter.

Mega production values and lights with a large band started the service by focusing on death. I knew this was going to be the case, so I watched for a minute and left.

If it were me wearing a lanyard, I would've engaged me right away, and asked if there was anything that I needed. But I understood before I even entered that even small churches don't do this.