Matthew Ch 23 Vs 1-12 - Beware of Pharisees (Episode 506)

Help me to continue to make and share great Biblical content everyday.

https://thebibleproject.buzzsprout.com

Beware of Pharisees.

Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, people observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do is to be seen by men. They make their Phy.lac.ter.y (A small leather box) wide and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love to sit in the best places at feasts, and the best seats in the synagogues,the love loud greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’ But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.  (Matthew 23: 1-12)

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome
• 1:22 Introduction (Matthew 23 1-12)
• 4:22 Beware of Pharisees
• 24:15 Farewell and Outro

Transcript

Beware of Pharisees (Matthew 23 1-12)

 Pharisee, you have heard the word, maybe you’ve heard it many times, and when you hear it the first thing that comes to mind is usually negative because even in a secular world that word has negative connotations. Most people have heard the word yet most only have some have a sort of vague idea about who they were and what they were about and why they have such a bad reputation. Who were the Pharisees what did they teach and what difference does it make to us today when those people lived nearly 2000 years ago. And the answer is plenty, as a matter of fact, it might not be too much to say that there’s a little bit of Pharisee in all of us. Jesus taught that we should beware of the Pharisees, meaning also we should beware of Pharisee’ism, but what is it, and what is it we’re trying to beware of. Well, the answer is found in the opening 12 verses of Matthew chapter 23.

Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, people observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do is to be seen by men. They make their Phy.lac.ter.y (A small leather box) wide and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love to sit in the best places at feasts, and the best seats in the synagogues,the love loud greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’ But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

(Matthew 23: 1-12)

This paragraph is talking in some people about this group pf people called the Pharisee’s. As I read it, it can be easily divided into two parts. In the first part of the passage, in the first 7 verses. Jesus talks about what they do and tells us not to do that.  In the second part of the passage which begins at verse 8 and goes through to verse 12 he tells us what we should do in light of what the Pharisees did and in contrast to them. So, with that in mind let’s begin and look first they did, that we should not do.

First Jesus speaks to the crowd and his disciples, and he says the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Now what does that mean. This was an  is an expression of holding a position as a teacher. In that day teachers sat in a raised chair when they taught, and everyone sat on the floor around them. Today the teacher mainly stands, but in that day, they sat, so to say they sat in Moses seat indicates that they were teaching the law of Moses. 

So first he says they say that they have the authority to teach the law. But then he says, whenever the tell you something directly from the law of Moses, then that thing you should do. At first that can sound a little confusing because it sounds like he’s saying whatever they say you should do, do that. But what he is actually saying is do, not do according to their example, but according to what they say, but only when it is from the law of Moses. This is obvious when in the very next verse he turns around and says they bind heavy burdens hard to bear.

That leads me to try and explain what the Pharisees were all about. The Pharisees were the teachers of the Mosaic law, and this is what they said about Moses and the law. They said that Moses received the law from God, then Moses delivered it to Joshua, Joshua gave it to the elders, the elders gave it to the prophets, the prophets gave it to the men of the great synagogue, which is another way of saying he gave it to them, the scribes and Pharisees. In other words, they were claiming to be the direct descendants spiritually of Moses, they felt that the law was passed down to them. So far so good, if they were just teaching you what Moses originally said. But Jesus says, the problem is they went way beyond what Moses said because they took the laws of Moses, and they added a whole lot of their own laws to it. They’re rationale was that their little laws were like fences around the big laws given to Moses, so if you obeyed their laws, you wouldn’t be in danger of breaking the big law. So, they added law upon law, upon law, adding all these kinds of things extra to the main laws of Moses. Around the time Christ they had written done those additional laws and it took 50 volumes (50 scrolls) to write them down, each about the size of one of the books of in our Old Testament Bible. Can you imagine trying to live a religious life by living regulations that filled fifty volumes, unimaginable. If you looked at those laws, all the emphasis was always on something you had to do, or not do. It was all based on external stuff. They put all the emphasis on rituals and rights, regulations that you had to follow, all of them having to do with external things. 1000 upon 1000’s of rules and regulations which did nothing but place an intolerable burden on people. 

Someone once said the test of any faith is action and does it raise us up, or does it weigh us down. Does it bring joy or depression. Is an individual helped by their religious faith or haunted by it. Does our faith carry us or does we strain to carry it. That’s exactly what Jesus said here, the Pharisee’s taught something that was a heavy burden upon people, and they wouldn’t so much as lift a little finger to help relieve that burden off of the people. The whole idea of being a Pharisee is that you had lots of laws, rules lots of rules, lots of regulations and you had to keep all of these rules to be considered right with God.

Then Jesus then goes beyond that to talk about their motives, and he says that what they are really after is, being seen by other people as religious. They may be doing all these religious things and they’re keeping all these regulations but what’s really going on is they just want to be seen by others and thought of as holy. In other words, they are not seeking the approval of God, they are seeking the applause of people.

At this point in the passage Jesus gives a number of illustrations. One of them has to do with a little leather box they wore on their forehead called a Phylactery in which were placed four strips of paper with verses from the Old Testament. Two, from the book of Exodus, and two from the book of Deuteronomy. The Pharisees took the idea of always calling the scripture to mind to mean wearing those things and then the Pharisees made their bigger and bigger.  The Old Testament also talked about having a worn fringe on the bottom of their skirt from travelling and teaching and over the years they had this great debate over how long those fringes should be. 

He also uses another illustration, he says they wanted the best seats at any banquet, and they also want the best seats in the synagogue. The best seat at the banquet was next to the host, the most honoured either sat on the right hand or the left hand of the host.

One more thing he point out, he says they love to be greeting in the street with loud cries of Rabbi. The word rabbi means master, or my master.  In Jesus day the Rabbis thought that they were more important than even your mother or your father. Their argument was your parents just gave you physical life but through their teaching you gained spiritual life, and that made them more important than your parents. So, when they went to the marketplace, they instructed people to address them as Rabbi.Putting all of this together it comes down to this thing called Pharisaism, which is a focus on external outward religious acts and activities designed to impress people.

The key is as Jesus says, it is all done to be seen by other people, not done for God. Jesus thought addressing this perspective was rather important, he spent a lot of time talking about it, starting in the Sermon on the Mount, all the way through his public ministry. This was a major theme that Jesus came back too, over and over again. On another occasion he said, “Remember, it’s not what goes into the person that the defiles them, it is what comes out”. In other words what is in your heart is what will manifest itself in your external actions. 

Today, if you have externalism without the internal attitude and your motive internally is just to get the applause of people, so you can look good, then that is like being a Pharisee and that's a critical component of this teaching. If it’s not coming from the heart, then that is a problem and that is why Jesus is talking about it here. 

One of the reasons this is so detrimental to us is because if you start down that path and then you add one more activity on top of another the emphasis starts to fall on what you’re doing, not who you are. I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t be doing good things; I’m simply saying when the emphasis is on the doing, the emphasis should be on  being, and if not then that's a problem. Jesus in this passage is saying beware of putting the emphasis on external activity, because that just becomes an intolerable burden to bear. Matthew in chapter 11 reported Jesus saying, come unto me all who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. He also said, lean on me my burden is light, He specifically says here that their burden is heavy, so when you chase around trying to do things to be noticed by other people that becomes an increasingly heavy burden to bear and it is not what God wants for you. Religion can become a burden for people, a pressure, a stress a constraint strain and that is what Jesus is warning against. Don't put the emphasis on the external stuff like the Pharisees, put the emphasis on the having a loving relationship with the Lord and doing thing just because you love him and want to be like him. It is at this point Jesus tells you what we should and should not do in response to this situation, so let’s revisit verse 8.

But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren.

(Matthew 23: 8)

Jesus said look don’t get hung up on being called by some religious title, you’ve only got one teacher and that’s the Lord himself. In reality in any church or even here in this on-line community there is really only one teacher and that is the Holy Spirit. The person who stands in front or speaks into the mike is only a facilitator, the real teacher is the Holy Spirit. Don’t think because you’re called a teacher or a Pastor or whatever tile people call you by in you church that you are anything special, you’re still just a brother or a sister in the Lord. Jesus is saying when it comes to spiritual things, make sure you don’t get so high minded that you forget that. He then gives another illustration in the next verses.

Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.0 And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ.

(Matthew 23: 9-10)

I am aware there’s a whole denomination where the leaders goes by the name of father, I’ve always been struck by this verse, when I grew up most of my friend went to a church were they called their minister by that title. How do you answer this, when Jesus said don’t be called father, now I need to say again there’s an emphasis here, Paul was known to say, himself that he was a father spiritually to some people, because he led them to Christ. He also called Timothy his son in the faith, so there’s a sense in which if you lead people to Christ then you are in a way their spiritual father. But that’s not quite the point Jesus is making. It’s actually about you as an individual choosing to elevate yourself above other people and saying, I want you to call me father, because I have this higher and holier position in the church. That’s what Jesus is talking about here. He even says do not desire to be called teacher, for there is but who is our teacher and that is the Holy Spirit. He’s making the same point, that there shouldn’t be this status seeking attitude. Ultimately none of the titles or position matter because what's important is our relationship with the Lord is one of love and devotion and we do things because we love and want to serve him.

The last point he makes in this passage he says in the closing verses by saying, the one who is greatest among you is the one who is the servant. Hang with me for just a minute, for this is very important. There’s two points for this passage, one is what the Pharisees did was about doing external acts done for the approval of people, and how they become a burden on people. The second part of this passage is saying don’t seek titles. God’s your father, God’s the teacher you don’t need another one. Your attitude has to be the attitude of a servant. The greatest among you should be your servant and whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and the humble shall be exalted.

Jesus is teaching that you need to take the attitude of becoming a servant, and don’t exalt yourself above people which is what the Pharisees did, be satisfied by simply become a humble servant of others. You don’t get to be great in the eyes of God by seeking some position or title or power or authority, you get there by just wanting to be in the service of God. The people who are proud, want the position, they want the title, they  want the applause of people, that’s what God wants. This is at the heart and core of everything that Jesus taught about religion and about spiritual life, about what we call Christianity. Anything else is a poor imitation. It has got to come from the heart, it’s got to be done for God only to see,  If you do things wanting credit from people you have fallen into the trap of the Pharisee’s already, I’m not saying all recognition from people is wrong, I’m saying when your heart is set on gaining recognition then you’ve fallen into the trap of then enemy. I believe all of us today need to walk away from this teaching with a new resolve to say I just want to be a humble servant of the Lord. What I do, I do just for the Lord’s sake, whether I get or not down here is not important, I’ll just be perfectly happy to get it from the Lord one day. 

Our objective is not behaviour, I know that sounds odd, but our objective is not to change other people’s behaviour, bear with me. It seems to me a lot of the time Christian preachers are trying to get people to change their behaviours but listen carefully friends. The object is not behavioural, as matter of fact if you make it behavioural the result will be hopeless legalism and conformity, and you will begin to then you conform to everybody else and what they think and that will just become a burden too heavy to bear. So, what is the objective and what is the aim? The answer is internal transformation. If you are transformed on the inside, then your heart and your mind and your emotions and your soul is where they ought to be. The behaviour will take care of itself, if your heart and emotions and you mind and the choices are pointed in the right direction.

There is no point preaching and browbeating people on conforming to external religious activity that going to make up a bit of difference in your position before God. What this has always come down to is God wants your heart, and the issue in the heart. Humility instead of pride, simply wanting to serve other in your world you may be king of the world but in God’s Kingdom he's the only king and everybody else is a mere servant.

The greatest, Jesus says are those who serve, and service always arises out of humility. So, this all comes down to, are you just trying to look good, well how about changing that for trying to be good and clean on the inside, and then you’ll look good in God’s eyes and that he is able to look back and see what was in your heart.