8 Bible Verses about Formality

As they departed, Jesus said to the people, speaking of John, what did ye go to see in the desert? a reed shaken with the wind? what did ye go to see? a man dress'd in rich apparel? why, they that are so array'd belong to the court: or did you go to see a prophet? yes, and be assured, one superiour to a prophet.

Then the Scribes and Pharisees, who were of Jerusalem, came to him and said, why do your disciples violate the tradition of our ancestors, in not washing their hands when they eat bread?

wo unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, but neglect those more important matters of the law, justice, mercy, and fidelity: these were the things ye ought to have practis'd, without neglecting however the other matters.

or rather that you are favoured by him, how can ye turn again to the weak and beggarly elements of the law, to which you desire again to be in bondage? observing as you do, the days, the moons, the feasts and years. you make me apprehensive, that the labour I have bestowed upon you will be all in vain.

If then you are dead with Christ, in respect of those shadows of the Jewish state; why do ye, as if you were still in that state, submit to those ordinances?

Take notice that in the latter days difficult incidents will arise; for men will be selfish, avaricious, vain, proud, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, villainous, unnatural, perfidious, defamers, debauchees,read more.
cruel, enemies to virtue, traitors, insolent, conceited, and more devoted to pleasure than to piety: of which they wear the appearance, but disclaim its influence. have no intercourse with such.

'Tis true, you bear the name of a Jew, you depend upon the law, and boast of your worship: you know the divine will, and what is contrary thereto, having been educated in the law: you think you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,read more.
an instructer of the ignorant, a teacher to the weak, because you have a clear view of the true meaning of the law. you therefore who instruct others don't you instruct yourself? you who preach against stealing, do you steal? you who declaim against adultery, do you commit adultery? you who abhor idols, do you commit sacrilege? and you, who glory in the law, do you dishonour God by the violation of the law? for (as it is written) the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles by your miscarriages. Circumcision indeed is an advantage, if you keep the law: but if you violate the law, your being a Jew makes you no better than a heathen. if therefore an uncircumcised Gentile keep the moral precepts contained in the law, shall not he be reckon'd, as if he were circumcised? and shall not a Gentile, tho' he is not actually circumcised, if he fulfil the law, condemn thee, who, tho' literally circumcised, dost yet transgress the law? for it is not the Jew in outward appearance, neither is it the external mark of circumcision: but it is the Jew, who is so inwardly, and it is the circumcision of the heart, according to the spiritual, not the literal sense, which have the approbation, I do not say of men, but of God.

which I might do more justly than any other man can pretend to: being circumcised the eighth day, of the family of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew by descent, by sect a Pharisee. if zeal is to be regarded, I persecuted the church; if the integrity prescrib'd by the law, I am without reproach;read more.
these advantages I renounce for Christ,