23 Then Jesus
said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the
Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they
teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice
what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and
lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift
a finger to move them. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by
others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They
love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the
synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces,
and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be
called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And
call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. 10 Nor
are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.11 The
greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt
themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
23 Then Jesus
said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the
Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat;
Many years ago I was
talking with someone about something – I don’t even remember what. And the person with whom I was speaking said
something about Myrtle Beach North Carolina.
Now I don’t always correct someone’s minor mistakes, but I said that
Myrtle Beach is in South Carolina. My
friends laughed and said, “Right, like there is a difference.”
Well, there is a
difference. Speaking as one having been
born in SC, clearly one is better than the other. I’ll leave it to you to judge which one is
best.
I have actually noticed
that many times – people confuse NC and SC.
I think we are also guilty of confusing North Dakota and South
Dakota.
We might do the same with
the Republicans and Democrates, the Sunnis and the Shiites, and many other
groups.
And we do it with the
Scribes and the Pharisees.
Jesus starts here with the
phrase, “the Scribes and the Pharisees,” so it might be a good time to stop and
think about the differences.
Do you remember the Jewish
dairy farmer from Fiddler on the Roof singing, “Tradition!” In that song he talks about how tradition
holds his people together. Because of
tradition, everyone knows who he is and what is expected of him.
The Jewish people had a
deep sense of tradition and continuity in their faith. We see that in the Pharisees and
Scribes.
The Jews had a
saying: ‘Moses received the law and
delivered it to Joshua; and Joshua to the elders; and the elders to the
prophets; and the prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue.’
The history of the Jews
was designed to make them a people of the law.
These people had been
conquered by the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Persians, and Jerusalem had
been left desolate. They were never a political force in the ancient
times. They were never a great military
power in the ancient world. But what
made them a separate people was their obedience to the Law.
At one time in their
history, the Jews had been invaded by the Babylonians. Many of the best and brightest were exiled
into Babylon. Assyria kept their rule by
killing the people, but Babylon kept their rule by taking the best leaders and
moving them far away to Babylon. There
the Jews, like all other nations, would be incorporated into the Babylonian
culture, lose their identity after a generation or two – but that did not
happen with the Jews because of their devotion to the Law.
Under Ezra and Nehemiah,
the people were allowed to return to Jerusalem.
When they rebuilt their city, Ezra took the book of the Law and read it
to everyone – those who had returned and those who had remained in
Jerusalem. There was a national
rededication to the Law, led by Ezra – THE SCRIBE. (Nehemiah 8:1–8).
From then on, the study of
the law became the greatest of all professions. Those who studied the law as a profession were
called Scribes.
The scribes interpreted
the Law into thousands and thousands of little rules and regulations. Walking on the Sabbath was limited to how
many paces one could walk before it was considered work, which could not be
done on the Sabbath.
It took more than fifty
volumes to hold all of these interpretations and regulations.
By the time Jesus arrives
on the scene, the Scribes had been around for 450 years.
The Pharisees were not
new, but they had only been around 175 years.
Around 175 BC, Antiochus
Epiphanes of Syria tried to destroy the Jewish religion and replace it with
Greek religion and Greek customs. That
is when the Pharisees rose up as a new and separate sect.
The name “Pharisee” means
the separated ones.
They dedicated their lives
to the most careful and accurate observance of every rule and regulation which
had been worked out by the Scribes – so these two groups, while separate, had a
connection – the law and especially the law as interpreted by the scribes.
Scribes had knowledge of
the law and could draft legal documents (contracts for marriage, divorce,
loans, inheritance, mortgages, the sale of land, and the like). Every village
had at least one scribe.
Pharisees were members of
a party that believed in resurrection and in following legal traditions that
were ascribed not to the Bible but to “the traditions of the fathers.” Like the
scribes, they were also well-known legal experts: hence the partial overlap of
membership of the two groups. It appears from subsequent rabbinic traditions,
however, that most Pharisees were small landowners and traders, not
professional scribes.
FOR
EXTRA INFORMATION
Pharisees, Sadducees,
Essenes, and Zealots were the four primary religious/political factions of the
time.
Pharisees
were keepers of the Law and held the entire (what we would call) Hebrew Bible
as the word of YHWH. They emerged from the exile as the dominant faction
because they (correctly) connected Israel's abandoning of the Law as the reason
for the punishment of exile. As such, they created "fences" to
attempt to keep people from even coming close to replicating this behavior and
casting Israel into exile and further punishment.
Sadducees
were more affluent and were also more sympathetic to the Hellenistic movement.
They acquiesced quite a bit to the influence of the prevailing powers (Greece,
and then Rome) because they realized it was economically and politically
advantageous for them to do so. They also only held the Pentateuch as their
authoritative Scriptures.
Essenes
held themselves to a higher standard of piety - including voluntary poverty,
abstinence, and other forms and degrees of asceticism. Additionally, they lived
in a tighter community (Jerusalem had an "Essene Quarter") and may
have influenced the early Christian community (of Acts 1-11). Some of them took
a more radical approach on this communalism and established the community of
Qumran.
Zealots
were just that. They believed that change could only be affected in the ruling
powers through force, and likely had not real religious leader.
Matthew 23:5–12
23 Then Jesus
said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the
Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they
teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice
what they teach.
It is interesting that
Jesus is speaking publically, not privately.
There has been a growing rift between the Scribes and Pharisees with
Jesus and it has gotten beyond the private conversations one might have with
someone with whom you are in conflict.
Earlier in Matthew, just a
couple of pages earlier, Jesus has had a very public run-in with religious
leaders who are outwardly practicing faith, but inwardly have no true
spirituality. The cleansing of the
temple has taken place in Matthew 21, and there is a growing jealousy between
the religious leaders and Jesus (describe there as “chief priests and teachers
of the law).
21:12 Then Jesus entered the temple area and drove out
all those who were selling and buying in the temple courts, and turned over the
tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. 13
And he said to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’
but you are turning it into a den of robbers!” 14 The
blind and lame came to him in the temple courts, and he healed them. 15
But when the chief priests and the experts in the law saw the wonderful things
he did and heard the children crying out in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the
Son of David,” they became indignant 16 and said to him, “Do you hear
what they are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes. Have you never read, ‘Out
of the mouths of children and nursing infants you have prepared praise for
yourself’?” 17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany
and spent the night there.
Here in Matthew 23, Jesus
acknowledges that they have authority.
As he puts it, they sit on the seat of Moses. This referred to a
teaching position in the local synagogue or in the local Jewish community.
He advises the people to
listen to their teachings but not to practice their life styles.
2 “The
scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do
whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do
not practice what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard
to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are
unwilling to lift a finger to move them.
"they
tie up heavy burdens" This was
a cultural metaphor which referred to the overloading or improper loading of
domestic animals.
This is reminiscent of
what Jesus said in the earliest parts of Matthew’s Gospel, in the Sermon on the
Mount:
11:28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke on you and learn from me,
because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.”
5 They
do all their deeds to be seen by others;
They were religious
exhibitionists.
When I go into a
restaurant, I always have a prayer, but sometimes it is not visible to others,
and sometimes – especially when I’m in a group from the church, I do so very
publically. It is a struggle sometimes.
Matthew 5:16 says, “let
your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your
Father in heaven.”
Then almost immediately,
Jesus says in chapter 6 of Matthew, “2"So
when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites
do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men.
Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3"But
when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand
is doing, 4so that
your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret
will reward you.”
So here is a point for our
group to ponder, “What is the difference here?
What guides us in what is right – public displays, or private actions?”
5 They
do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad
and their fringes long.
The religion of the
Scribes and Pharisees is a dangerous one, because it lends itself to being
ostentatious. It becomes a bragging
right. It makes one feel great, as if
one has accomplished something greater than anyone else.
There was something
arrogant about this way of life.
They made broad their
phylacteries. Those were boxes they wore on their hands and foreheads and
inside these boxes were Scripture passages.
In Exodus 13:9 it says:
‘It shall serve for you as a sign on your hand, and as a reminder on your
forehead.’ The same saying is repeated: ‘It shall serve as a sign on your hand
and as an emblem on your forehead’ (Exodus 13:16; cf. Deuteronomy 6:8, 11:18).
In order to fulfil these commandments, Jews wore at prayer, and still wear,
what are called tephillin or phylacteries. They are worn on every day except
the Sabbath and special holy days. They are like little leather boxes, strapped
one on the wrist and one on the forehead. The one on the wrist is a little
leather box of one compartment, and inside it there is a parchment roll with
passages of Scripture.
The Pharisees, in order to
draw attention to themselves, not only wore phylacteries, but wore specially
big ones, so that they might demonstrate their exemplary obedience to the law
and their exemplary piety.
They wear oversize
tassels, and these tassels were mentioned in Numbers 15:37–41:
37 The
Lord said to Moses: 38 Speak
to the Israelites, and tell them to make fringes on the corners of their
garments throughout their generations and to put a blue cord on the fringe at
each corner. 39 You have the fringe so that, when you see it,
you will remember all the commandments of the Lord
and do them, and not follow the lust of your own heart and your own eyes. 40 So
you shall remember and do all my commandments, and you shall be holy to your
God. 41 I am the Lord
your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord your God.
It is also mentioned in
Deuteronomy 22:12.
12 You shall make tassels on the
four corners of the cloak with which you cover yourself.
Today they are perpetuated
in the tassels of the prayer shawl which devout Jews wear at prayer. It was
easy to make these tassels of very large size so that they became an
ostentatious display of piety, worn not as a reminder of the commandments but
as a means of drawing attention to the wearer.
Today, how many people wear
crosses as jewelry, but have no faith at all?
6 They love to
have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and
to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them
rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one
teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your
father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. 10 Nor
are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.
What do different
translations say in verse 8?
NIV has "But you are
not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers.
You can take this to
extreme and call everyone brother and sister, or today we might call everyone
“person.” People do have titles, such as
“teacher,” but in our faith there is an equality.
Colossians 3:11
Here there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian,
Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all.
In the Presbyterian
Church, there is a strong belief in the priesthood of all believers. All of the people in the church are equal –
whether clergy or laity.
Among the membership of
the Session, we are all equal – I’m a teaching elder and the others are ruling
elders. We all have one vote.
Jesus is calling on us to
practice this equality and not to put one person higher than another.
11 The greatest
among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves
will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
Jesus has brought up this
concept of servanthood earlier.
20:25 But Jesus called them and said, “You know that
the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions use
their authority over them. 26 It must not be this way among you! Instead
whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever
wants to be first among you must be your slave – 28 just as the Son of
Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom
for many.”
