8 Bible Verses about Formality

As these men started to go away, Jesus began to speak to the throngs, about John. "What did you go out into the desert to behold?" he asked; "A reed shaken by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, those who wear soft raiment dwell in kings' palaces! "But why did you go? To see a prophet? I tell you, yes, and more than a prophet;

Then some Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, "Why do your disciples keep transgressing the tradition of the elders by not washing their hands before eating?"

"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and anise and cummin, and neglect the weightier matters of the Law??ustice and mercy and good faith; these latter you ought to have done, and not to have left the former undone.

Now, however, when you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you are beginning to turn back to those weak and beggarly externalities, eager to be in bondage to them again? You are scrupulous, are you, in observing "days" and "months" and "seasons" and "years"? I am alarmed about you for fear lest I may have bestowed labor on you to no purpose.

If you died with Christ to the world's rudimentary notions, why, as if you still lived in the world, do you submit yourselves to dogmatisms found on teachings and doctrines of men??21 such as "Do not handle this," "You must not taste that," "Do not touch this"??22 all things which are intended to perish in the using?

But of this be sure. In the last days grievous times will come. For men will be selfish, mercenary, boastful, haughty, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, irreligious, without natural affection, merciless, slanderous, dissolute, and brutal.read more.
They will hate goodness, they will be treacherous, reckless, blinded with pride, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God. For although they keep up the outward form of religion, they deny its power.

Now if you bear the name of a Jew, and rely upon law, and boast yourself in God, and know his will, and can test the things that differ; if you are instructed out of the Law, and are confident that you yourself are a darkness,read more.
an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of the young, because you have in the Law the form of knowledge and of the truth??ell then, you who are teaching others, do you ever teach yourself? You who are preaching that a man should not steal, do you practise theft? You who keep saying that a man should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who hold idols in abhorrence, are you plundering their temples? You who are making your boast in the Law, do you habitually dishonor God through your transgressions of the Law? For the name of God is continually blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, even as the Scripture itself says. Circumcision does indeed profit, if you are obedient to the Law; but if you habitually break the Law, your circumcision is become uncircumcision. So if the uncircumcised keeps the ordinance of the Law, shall not his uncircumcision be reckoned equivalent to circumcision. And shall not those who are physically uncircumcised, but who keep the Law, condemn you who are a breaker of the Law, although you have a written law and circumcision? For the real Jew is not the man who is one outwardly, and the real circumcision is not outward in the flesh; but the real Jew is one inwardly, and real circumcision is heart??ircumcision, spiritual, not literal, praised not by men, but by God.

although I myself might have confidence in outward rites. If any one else claims a right to trust in them, far more may I; circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew sprung from the Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which comes through law, blameless.read more.
But what was once gain to me, that I have counted loss for Christ.