God is not a bean counter!

God is not a bean counter! Acording to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, the word 'bean counter' is a slang word that refers to a person, "such as an accountant or financial officer, who is concerned with quantification, especially to the exclusion of other matters."

Look at the bean counting in Matthew 23:23! Jesus Christ calls the pharisees and scribes hypocrites! In our culture today we hear the term 'pharisee' and we have no problem with them being called 'hypocrites'. In the Biblical culture the pharisees were respected and thought of as those who were devoted to God. But in their devotion they had gotten off into the dark side of religion focused on the quantification of devotion rather than the reality of helping people see what God's heart really is all about. Jesus Christ was well-acquainted with the heart of God.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

The point here is that they couldn't 'see the forest for the trees'. It was not that giving was wrong, it was that the broader scope of God's heart was being missed. We can do the same thing today. We can condemn others on the basis of isolated passages of the Bible while totally violating huge principles of God's love and our equal standing and access to Him.

The pharisees wanted to make converts and they did do that, but what did those people learn? Bean Counting? Our privilege today is to to help people see the lush green forest of God. The way in is by Jesus Christ, whom God made Lord, not to mention getting him up from the lifeless state of death. Read Romans 10 in its entirety, it is beautiful! God is no respecter of persons. It is available to anyone and everyone. Now there's a weightier matter, the equal standing of all believers in Christ!