Title

Hypocrisy

Scripture
When an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples first of all, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."
(Luke 12:1)
Devotional
Numbers obviously did not impress Jesus; people moved Him. (1) The important had precedence over the urgent. Even though the crowd was overwhelming, "He began to say to His disciples first of all," and I would imagine, that the disciples were more than a little impressed by the mass of people. They most likely wondered what He would say to them or maybe how He would feed them like He had fed the other multitudes. Instead, He ministered to His disciples: "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Why? What prompted His warning? Could it have been a warning about doing one thing in a crowd and another in private? Could it have been their being impressed by their own popularity instead of being moved by the presence of the Son of God? I do not believe that He was warning them about the Pharisees, but that He was warning them (and us) about what he deemed hypocrisy.

(1) Matthew 9:36