WEIGHTIER MATTERS

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, 

and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; 

these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others." 

Matthew 23:23

Tithe belongs to the LORD

A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD (Lv. 27:30). Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year (Dt. 14:22).

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it" (Mal. 3:10).

Mercy is the Love of God

"Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone." -- Luke 11:42

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (1 Jn. 4:16). This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him (1 Jn. 4:9). For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (Jn. 3:16).

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 Jn. 4:10). And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son (1 Jn. 5:11).

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life (1 Jn. 5:13).

This stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth (Gn. 28:22).