Pay Attention to the Little Things Too

26 August 2025  Matthew 23:23-26

“But these you should have done, without neglecting the others.”

Matthew 23:23

People get this text wrong all the time. And because they get it wrong, they make little progress in discipleship and the spiritual life.

They think the text says that it is OK to take a pass on piddling little things like tithing “mint, dill, and cummin” as long as you get the big things right – “judgment, mercy and fidelity.” But Jesus didn’t say any such thing. In fact, He said exactly the opposite: “These you should have done [i.e. judgment, mercy, fidelity], without neglecting the others [i.e. tithing mint, dill cummin]” (Matthew 23:23). Jesus said we have to do them both.

Elite athletes have always known the importance of little things, and their advice to aspiring athletes is always the same: practice the little things daily, fanatically. Michael Phelps swam 50 miles every week, along with weight training, and specific drills to improve technique. Kobe Bryant took 700-1000 shots every day, concentrating on making, not just taking shots, along with 2-3 hours of skill and agility drills. He would practice to get ready for practice, not just games. In the spiritual life there is no replacement for close reading of scripture – focusing on things like historical context, the meaning of words in that context, how particular texts are related to other texts in the same book, and other books of the Bible, learning how particular texts have impacted other areas of the church’s life, like liturgy, prayer, ethics, and government. There is no replacement for prayer – regular, substantial, particular, frequent. Prayer is turning as much of yourself as you have toward as much of God as you understand, and for it to form the interior life it has to be a daily discipline. Inattention to little things in the end means indifference to excellence, competence and growth.

Little things are inseparable from the big things. Jesus mentions “judgment” as one of the weightier matters of the Law. This isn’t “judgment” in the sense of wisdom or prudence, but judgment in the sense of making up your mind. The Greek word for “judgment” used here is krisis, which gives us the English term “crisis,” and it refers to a decision. In other words, Jesus is saying that the most significant objective of the Law is to lead people to make a decision to accept the mercy of God, and then trust God’s direction in every area of life (cf. 23:23), including and especially the little things. Because of this close connection, Jesus advises: “These things you should have done, without neglecting the others.”

The little things and the big things go together.

Jesus doesn’t have a plan for just the big things in your life, but for all the things in your life. He doesn’t want us to examine just big decisions in light of the gospel, but every decision. And He had this in common with the Scribes and Pharisees. It is a grave misunderstanding to imagine that Jesus’ teaching was less demanding than the Scribes and Pharisees. He said Himself that He came not to abolish, but to fulfill the Law (Matthew 5:17), that not one letter, or even a stroke of a letter would pass from the Law until all was accomplished (5:18). His yoke is easy and His burden is light not in the sense that they are no longer burdens, but in the sense that they pull everything together, and we have the comfort of knowing how everything fits in the economy of salvation. Comfort is not about bearing lighter burdens. It comes from the Latin, cum forte, “with strength.” It is about having more strength to carry heavier, more significant ones.