Devotional Guide, Today’s Reading Tuesday October 3, 2023

Comment: The word “houses” denotes “property” or “possessions”. The scribes and Pharisees put up a false appearance as custodians and strict observers of the law of God, but in earnest, they were far from the righteousness of God. A writer once said: “They pretended to extraordinary justice to the poor, friendship for the distressed, and willingness to aid those who were in embarrassed circumstances. They thus induced widows and poor people to commit the management of their property to them, as guardians and executors, and then took advantage of them, and defrauded them”. They were more interested in filling their personal coffers with ludicrous gains of deceit, than the interest of the people. Saint Paul describes them as leaders, “Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake”. – Titus 1:11; 2 Timothy 3:6.