Straining out Gnats While Swallowing Camels

Jesus once said to a group of Pharisees, “You hypocrites are very scrupulous. If a gnat gets into what you are drinking, you strain it out with the utmost care. But if a camel gets in what you are drinking, you gulp it down, hide, hair, humps, hooves, and all” (Matthew 23:24). What is wrong with this conduct? Jesus was certainly not encouraging the Pharisees to drink gnats — nobody likes gnat cola!

Jesus was rebuking these self-conscious and self-righteous religious leaders for scrupulously straining out gnats while swallowing something a million times bigger. In other words, He is accusing them of majoring on minors, of giving major stress to something that is of minor significance. This, of course, is not something on which the Pharisees had a copyright. Majoring on matters of minor significance is still a very widespread practice in our world today.

One of the responsibilities I have had as a Christian minister is to provide marriage counseling for husbands and wives whose homes have become major battlegrounds. As a general rule, the problems producing tensions in marriages are not some colossal evil that makes it impossible for couples to live together happily. Generally speaking, big things tend to bring couples closer together. Millions of couples have weathered major storms on the high seas, only to have a shipwreck on a sheltered pond, or even in a bathtub.

Often the troubles that make the home a living hell rather than a colony of heaven on earth, that lead to separation and divorce, start over something petty and insignificant. “Dinner’s frosting, mother’s not; Today’s her birthday, dad forgot!” Do you see what I mean? A wise husband is one who does not forget his wife’s birthday – but does forget how many! A boy said to his father, “Dad, before you and mom got married, who told you how to drive?”  Uh-oh!

Another area where we major on minors is in the area of our vocational lives. A businessman says, “I’m not in business for my health; I’m in it to see how much money I can make.” He is making primary that which should be secondary. It is perfectly legitimate to make a profit in business; it is the only way you can stay in business and provide for your family. But whoever makes profit the sole motive for doing business is majoring on minors.

Churches can also be guilty of majoring on minors, and often are. The Pharisees to whom Jesus spoke were very religious people. They really worked at their job. They were not lazy or inefficient in the performance of their religious duties. They were highly respected. They did many very fine things. Their sin? Winning the applause of men became their primary motive. They did what they did for the sake of appearance.

We North Carolina Baptists had a huge argument fifty years ago over whether students at Wake Forest University could be involved in dancing, but social injustice, economic dishonesty, political chicanery, racial prejudice, and moral depravity in our state and nation received almost no attention. We were guilty of majoring on minors. And Baptists are not the only Christian denomination in North Carolina guilty of doing this. When Christian churches become so preoccupied with checking the orthodoxy of their brothers and sisters that they become unplugged from the task Jesus Christ assigned to His followers, they are guilty of majoring on minors, of straining out gnats while swallowing camels.

Why are we often guilty of giving major emphasis to things of minor significance? First of all, taking the small view of things is easy. Thinking small, and doing small things, requires little effort; whereas, thinking big and doing big things requires a lot of effort and time. Second, we often have a wrong sense of values. We do not take the time to determine what is real from that which is counterfeit.  We settle for paste rather than pearls, for glass rather than diamonds. When we do this, we sell our birthright for a mess of pottage. Whether or not our values are twisted out of shape can be determined by examining our check stubs. Our check stubs show where our priorities are.

There are ways to overcome the habit of straining out gnats while swallowing camels. First of all, we must learn how to judge values properly, so we can distinguish between that which is valuable and that which has no value. God’s Word gives excellent instruction in this regard. Finally, we must put God at the center of our lives.

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