Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 11:41

"But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, all things are clean unto you." — Luke 11:41 (ASV)

But rather give alms of such things as ye have.—This, too, is peculiar to Saint Luke. In the underlying principle of its teaching, it sweeps away the whole fabric of the law of ceremonial purity, as the words of Matthew 15:10-20 had, on different grounds, done before. The distinction between the two phases of the truth is that here greater stress is laid on the active purifying power of the love of which alms, if not given for the sake of man’s praise, is the natural expression. That which defiles is selfishness; that which purifies is the unselfishness of love.