Daily Bible Reading 13th September 2026 // Luke 11:37-54
37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. 38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the market-places. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”
45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” 46 And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute’, 50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. 52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”
53 As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
Let us take the passage, then, in its context. Jesus has been describing the nature of true discipleship, from chapter 9 onwards, and we have seen this to be a rigorous, thoroughgoing challenge that makes no concessions to the flesh. The standard has been high - inexorably and shatteringly high - and therefore alternatives to it are obviously going to be on the market! One alternative is to abandon it altogether and 'walk no more with Him' (as indicated in John 6:66). Another is, to develop, perhaps unconsciously, certainly imperceptibly, a form of godliness which denies the power of godliness, like the Pharisees and formalists of our Lord's Day. This is always a danger, where the form of religious observance is something men still want to retain, but the cost of reality is too great for them to pay. To take a stand for some needed truth - as the Pharisees, in their origin, did - is a good and necessary thing; but it is also fraught with peril, for if the initial virtue that led to it spends itself, and it becomes a thing in itself, without power or grace, Pharisaism will inevitably result, with its subsequent harshness, inhumanity and barrenness. Harshness (42), inhumanity (46ff), barrenness (52) - are these not the very characteristics that Jesus exposes in the woes He utters in these verses? How tragic - and frightening - that what began as a movement ended as a disease! And, this being so, is it not much more to the point that the passage should be taken as a solemn message 'for us', rather than 'for them'?