8 Bible Verses about Formality

When the messengers had taken their leave, Jesus proceeded to say to the multitude concerning John, "What did you go out into the Desert to gaze at? A reed waving in the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man luxuriously dressed? Those who wear luxurious clothes are to be found in kings' palaces. But why did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and far more than a prophet.

Then there came to Jesus a party of Pharisees and Scribes from Jerusalem, who inquired, "Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the Elders by not washing their hands before meals?"

"Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay the tithe on mint, dill, and cumin, while you have neglected the weightier requirements of the Law--just judgement, mercy, and faithful dealing. These things you ought to have done, and yet you ought not to have left the others undone.

Now, however, having come to know God--or rather to be known by Him--how is it you are again turning back to weak and worthless rudimentary notions to which you are once more willing to be enslaved? You scrupulously observe days and months, special seasons, and years. I am alarmed about you, and am afraid that I have perhaps bestowed labour upon you to no purpose.

If you have died with Christ and have escaped from the world's rudimentary notions, why, as though your life still belonged to the world, do you submit to such precepts as

But of this be assured: in the last days grievous times will set in. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, profane. They will be disobedient to parents, thankless, irreligious, destitute of natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers. They will have no self-control, but will be brutal, opposed to goodness,read more.
treacherous, headstrong, self-important. They will love pleasure instead of loving God, and will keep up a make-believe of piety and yet live in defiance of its power. Turn away from people of this sort.

And since you claim the name of Jew, and find rest and satisfaction in the Law, and make your boast in God, and know the supreme will, and can test things that differ--being a man who receives instruction from the Law-- and have persuaded yourself that, as for you, you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,read more.
a schoolmaster for the dull and ignorant, a teacher of the young, because in the Law you possess an outline of real knowledge and an outline of the truth: you then who teach your fellow man, do you refuse to teach yourself? You who cry out against stealing, are you yourself a thief? You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You who loathe idols, do you plunder their temples? You who make your boast in the Law, do you offend against its commands and so dishonour God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentile nations because of you, as Holy Writ declares. Circumcision does indeed profit, if you obey the Law; but if you are a Law-breaker, the fact that you have been circumcised counts for nothing. In the same way if an uncircumcised man pays attention to the just requirements of the Law, shall not his lack of circumcision be overlooked, and, although he is a Gentile by birth, if he scrupulously obeys the Law, shall he not sit in judgement upon you who, possessing, as you do, a written Law and circumcision, are yet a Law-breaker? For the true Jew is not the man who is simply a Jew outwardly, and true circumcision is not that which is outward and bodily. But the true Jew is one inwardly, and true circumcision is heart-circumcision--not literal, but spiritual; and such people receive praise not from men, but from God.

although I myself might have some excuse for confidence in outward ceremonies. If any one else claims a right to trust in them, far more may I: circumcised, as I was, on the eighth day, a member of the race of Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew sprung from 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.
Yet all that was gain to me--for Christ's sake I have reckoned it loss.