STRAINING A GNAT

 

STRAINING A GNAT

 

 

 

Mtt23:24NKJV “Blind guides, who STRAIN OUT A GNAT and swallow a camel!”

 

 

 

The Passion Translation states it clearly:

“What blind guides! Nitpickers!

You will spoon out a gnat from your drink,

yet at the same time

you’ve gulped down a camel without realizing it! “

 

This is best seen as an Aramaic pun, because the Aramaic word for gnat is qamla, and the word for camel is gamla. The gnat becomes a metaphor of what is least and insignificant, for swallowing a gnat will not hurt you. But the camel becomes a picture of self-righteousness. To swallow a camel would indeed kill you.

 

 

How often do we get hung up on one word a person might be saying that we miss the entire message being spoken?

 

We are so legally locked in to something that doesn’t fit our particular paradigm that we are compelled to correct that crossing of the “t” or dotting of the “I”… and we completely miss the very spirit of life that is trying to change our vision.

We are offended by their profanity… and even forbid them to speak that way around us!!!  We try to make everyone around us fit into our neat little box… and if it doesn’t… then I let them know!

 

That is a religious spirit.

…Bringing all under a law we, ourselves, can’t even fulfill.  (Lk11:46)

 

We forget that “by grace are ye saved through faith… and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Eph2:8-9KJV)

 

Christ, Himself, hung out at times with sinners and publicans, earning Himself a reputation as a “winebibber and a glutton”. Do you think He was concerned about how they talked around Him?  Do we read in the gospels where He instructed anyone not to talk that way because it offended Him?

 

The only ones with whom He seemed to have a real problem were the religious folk.

 

Col4:5–6KJV “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.  Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”

 

1Cor14:26KJV “…Let all things be done unto edifying”

 

Gal5:14–15 “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”