Full Transcript

Welcome to Share the Word. It seems that there are more and more social media feeds focused around the controversies of our leaders, both religious and political. They use adjectives like hypocritical, slanderous, and frankly some that I don’t care to repeat. But posturing seems to be the game. And Jesus wasn’t into posturing or playing games, especially with this brood of vipers. Paul.

Matthew 23. No shrinking violets. Are you familiar with that idiom, no shrinking violet? Apparently originated in our language from the nature of the small violet plant flower, which grows so low to the ground it seems to almost shrink from attention. So someone described as a shrinking violet is someone timid who does not like to be noticed, while no shrinking violet describes a person who is bold and not afraid to speak their mind. Truth always carries with it confrontation.

But if our reflex action is always accommodation, regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there’s something wrong. That’s a quotation from the 20th century Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer, who himself was no shrinking violet. By saying, If our reflex action is always to accommodate, regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there’s something wrong, he meant if we cannot find it within ourselves to stand up and say, No, that’s wrong, regardless of the truth that is at stake, then something is seriously lacking in us. Francis Schaeffer was a Christian thinker and writer who reached the peak of his influence in the years I was coming of age, in my teens and my twenties.

I was impressed by him because he embodied the reality that you didn’t have to turn off your brain to be a Christian, that there was no natural conflict between being an intellectually based person and being a follower of Jesus. He pointed out, I’m quoting him here again, all people have presuppositions. By presuppositions, we mean the basic way an individual looks at life, his worldview, the grid through which he sees the world. Presuppositions rest upon that which a person considers to be the truth, and a person’s presuppositions provide the basis for their values and therefore the basis for their life decisions. He went on to say, God’s word will never pass away.

But looking back through biblical recorded history and even to the present time, with tears, we must say that because of a lack of fortitude and faithfulness on the part of God’s people, God’s word has many times been allowed to be bent to conform to the surrounding, passing, changing culture of the moment, rather than upheld as the inerrant word of God, which in fact judges the form of the world spirit and culture at any given moment. You’ve been listening to Share the Word for a while. I’m sure you hear similarities in our outlook. I thought of Francis Schaeffer this past week because I accidentally ran across an article his son wrote. His son, named Frank Schaeffer, is a fairly well-known social commentator to this day. He’s a writer in his own right, but Frank turned away from his parents’ views, and especially after his father died.

And the piece by him, which I’m referring to, which was published on Salon.com, a popular liberal website, was titled, Conservative Christians Would Have Hated Jesus. Well, that title obviously was intended to get people’s attention, and it got mine. I disagreed with most everything he wrote in that article. Obviously, one of his key points being, and these are his words, Jesus put empathy over dogma. By dogma, he meant, this is the definition, an authoritative set of beliefs that must be unquestionably accepted as true. So Schaefer Jr. was suggesting in his article that Jesus put love and accepting people even over the Word of God, which is what he was referring to as dogma.

He raised examples of that contention. One example might be Jesus preventing the stoning of the woman caught in adultery, even though the law of Moses prescribed that. He added, for people who call Jesus the Son of God, you’d think they would reject the veneration of this book, meaning the Bible, the book he’s trapped in, and the church dogma that has crucified him again each time a gay man is refused the sacraments. Frank feels that when Christians take the Bible as seriously as, say, his father did, or I do, we’re crucifying Jesus all over again because for Jesus, he claimed, empathy always trumps dogma. People’s feelings and dignity are far more important than any rules coming from a dusty old book claiming to be God’s truth. Based on that last comment, I wonder how much of the younger Schaefer’s views have been influenced because one of his own sons is a practicing homosexual.

Sometimes people begin to selectively read the New Testament, selectively interpret Jesus based on their personal situations. As his own father said, God’s Word has many times been allowed to be bent to conform to the surrounding, passing, changing culture of the moment rather than upheld as the inherent Word of God, which in fact judges the forms in the world, in its spirit, in its culture at any given moment. In Matthew 23, we see Jesus being anything but empathetic to people who not only rejected him, but who did their best to lead others to reject him too. At the end of chapter 22, when Jesus finished that wedding feast parable with its impossible-to-misapplication of judgment for the religious leaders, it appears they walked away from him at that point. Remember, these were the temple leaders who had confronted him, challenging his authority to even be teaching there.

I think they stomped away from him at that point because Jesus was making them look bad in front of a lot of people that were gathered there in the temple courtyard, and that was frustrating and angering to them. But they were afraid to try to stop him at this point, so they disengaged for the time being, went back into the temple. So once chapter 23 opens, although his opponents are likely back in the temple, fuming and plotting, Jesus is far from done venting about their kind. Almost this entire chapter is a running diatribe against the society’s most influential religious leaders, the Pharisees and the scribes. Pharisees were the leaders of the most popular denomination of Judaism. The scribes were the recognized religious scholars of the time.

But at this point, Jesus was in no mood to hold back. He was no longer trying to avoid open confrontation with them. If anything, he seemed more than willing to provoke them. So what did Jesus say? Well, he denounced the scribes and Pharisees for several things throughout this chapter. For one, the fact that too many of them did not practice what they preached.

In verses 3 and 4, he said to those there listening to him, including Matthew and the other disciples, Therefore, all that they tell you, do and keep, but do not do according to their deeds, for they say things and do not do them. And they tie up heavy burdens and lay them on other men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. It’s not surprising. What Jesus called out first was their hypocrisy. It was far from the first time he had done that. He granted these are the teachers of God’s law at the moment, so when they teach you God’s law, obey that, but don’t look to them to show you what obedience to God’s law looks like.

Don’t imagine they are the examples. Hypocrisy, remember, means putting on an act. When someone acts pious and holy, as the Pharisees and teachers of the law were masters at, yet inwardly are far out of tune with God. That’s the worst kind of hypocrisy as far as Jesus was concerned. And this is what he is pointing to in verse 23 where he says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You tithe mint and dill and cumin, but have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

Mint, dill, and cumin were common spices used in their favorite dishes. Can you picture a white-robed Pharisee carefully counting out tiny dill seeds so he could be sure to tithe one out of ten, while oblivious to what Jesus called the much weightier matters like justice, mercy, and faithfulness to God? If you’re unfamiliar, it takes about 10,000 dill seeds to make one ounce of spice. They’re minuscule. Pharisees concerned themselves with the tiniest details of unimportant things, but ignored the greatest issues in their society God was concerned about. This was Jesus’ charge.

Hypocrisy is definitely something God hates, then and now. Anyone who presumes to be in a position of teaching others needs to constantly check themselves against what Jesus said to these religious leaders at that time. When religious leaders do not practice what they preach, it creates cynicism, and it causes people to not take God or His Word seriously. It turns people away from Him, the very opposite of what ministers are supposed to be about. Connected to that, Jesus pointed to how the Pharisees focused on external, visible things rather than internal heart issues. Remember, with God, it’s always a matter of the heart.

In verses 25 through 28, Jesus denounced this wrong focus in very strong words. Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and uncleanness. You also outwardly appear righteous to others, but inwardly are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness, robbery and self-indulgence. Wow, that’s a really graphic image, isn’t it? Whitewashed tombs.

Yeah, they would whitewash their tombs to make them look clean and attractive to passersby, while inside, of course, are rotting corpses. Any religion that emphasizes external things over heart matters is missing the point and is messed up. We can conform to every religious rule and standard imaginable, but inwardly be very far from God and anything but authentically holy. When Jesus referenced robbery and self-indulgence, I think He probably had in mind what He had called the Pharisees out for earlier, that practice of Corban, which allowed them to appear holy while failing to look out for their own aging parents. They had this little ritual. They would declare all their wealth dedicated to God and so untouchable.

Not untouchable for their future use, just unavailable right now to help my parents. That’s disgusting. Religious charlatans and greed always go hand in hand. When so-called Christian organizations now, or churches now and their leaders enrich themselves and live materially self-indulgent lifestyles off of money given under the pretense of helping others or advancing the gospel, they are no better than those Jesus was calling out that day. And they should not imagine God does not see through the whitewashed facade they create to the greed that is their real agenda. A third thing Jesus denounced the scribes and Pharisees over was their pride.

He said, They do all their deeds to be noticed by men. For example, they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments, and they love the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogue, and the respectful greetings in the marketplace and being called Rabbi by men. Got on a roll there. That sounds strange to us, but of course, styles change from culture to culture, even with religious garb. The super religious in Israel at the time wore these things called phylacteries. In fact, I think some Orthodox Jewish rabbis still do.

Picture a leather headband with a little black box attached to it on the front, on your forehead, and inside the box were tiny scrolls of scripture. It was an overly literal way of doing what God had said about always remembering His law, like keeping it in the forefront of your mind. Okay, we’ll put tiny scrolls in a box right on our forehead. Apparently, the bigger the headband and the box and the longer the tassels on the bottom of the snowy white Pharisee robes, the louder that shouted. Hey, look at me. I am a holy man.

Just as was also being shown deference when out and about, having the best seat saved for them in the synagogue, expecting the little people to address them by high-sounding religious titles. Jesus said this was all nonsense based on the wrong kind of pride, and promoted the wrong notion that some people are, by virtue of their office, above the rest of us. In society today, saying wrong spirit of pride and rank is often seen in clerical outfits some religious people still wear, their headgear, the size of the cross worn around their neck, the elaborate titles they want to be known by like Father or, worse, Holy Father or Reverend or Doctor. Jesus went out of his way to speak against such practices to his disciples when he said, You are not to be called Rabbi because you have one teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters.

Don’t call anyone on earth your father, he meant in the spiritual sense, because you have one Father who is in heaven. The greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. No different than in that society, the wearing of special clerical garb and accoutrements, expecting others to call you by high-sounding titles. Wherever that kind of thing is practiced, it still breeds a wrong kind of pride and fosters the unbiblical notion that these people are above the rest of us in the spiritual pecking order, holier than the rest of us, a notion Jesus detested.

You’re all brothers, he told his followers. Don’t forget that. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled. He said a lot more that day, unloading exactly how he felt about those who were unfortunately Israel’s religious leaders right then. Listen to verses 16 and following. Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary, that’s meaningless.

But whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary, he is obligated.’ You fools and blind men, which is more important, the gold or the sanctuary that sanctifies the gold? What was that about? Here’s what it was about. You forgot to say, Simon says. Do you remember that game when you were a five- or six-year-old?

Simon says, touch your nose. Simon says, hop up and down. Stop. Uh-oh, you’re out of the game if you stopped, because you know why? Simon didn’t say to stop. How foolish is this?

The Pharisees had elaborate ways to avoid telling the truth or being held to a vow, like, Ha-ha, I had my fingers crossed behind my back when I said that, so it doesn’t count. Jesus said those kinds of word games they played were so ridiculous. They had to do with those extra-biblical made-up hedge rules. We talked about this one time. Remember those? They had developed these over centuries of time and took them very seriously.

Jesus had no time for any of that. In this case, he said, Your word better be your bond. Your yes better mean yes. Your clever ways to deceive people in no way override God’s requirement to be honest and to be people of integrity. One of the most damning things, literally, that Jesus said against the religious leaders that day comes at verse 29 and following. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of those prophets.’

Awash, you bear witness, Jesus said against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your forefathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers. How will you escape the sentence of hell? Oh my. Go on and do what you’re doing now, he says, and see where that takes you. The tombs of Israel’s famous heroes and prophets of the past were revered monuments in Israel.

But any familiarity with Israel’s history reveals that many of them were persecuted and killed by their own people who did not want to follow them or listen to their messages from God. Jesus said that had gone on since the very beginning, since righteous Abel had been killed by his brother Cain, and it was still going on to this current generation. And while this current crop of leaders extolled those men of God in the past and decorated their tombs, claiming they certainly never would have treated them the way they had been treated back in the day, Please, Jesus scoffed, because they were plotting to kill him right then. I mean literally, they were in the temple plotting his death right then. A bunch of snakes. What could prevent the sentence of hell for them?

Jesus asked, anger flashing in his eyes. They will measure up to the guilt of their fathers, he said, because I am sending them prophets, wise men and scribes, and some of them will be killed and crucified, and some of you will flog them in your temples and in your sanctuaries and persecute them from city to city. All the guilt of the righteous blood shed on the earth will fall on you, he meant that generation. All these things will come upon these people. He was speaking prophetically then about what was coming, how these very religious leaders would not only be responsible for his death, but would persecute and kill his followers, the early Christian leaders too, and that God would hold them accountable for this and bring down judgment on them that they deserved. I can almost hear him let out a long sigh after saying all this.

And then he wistfully concluded that day’s teaching at the temple with these words, probably the most famous from this chapter, starting at verse 37: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you did not want it. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate. And from now on you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ The desolation Jesus spoke of would be the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans thirty-some years after this, which brought about the end of that society.

And you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,’ is looking clear ahead to his future return to Jerusalem one day from heaven, when all Israel will recognize he was indeed their Messiah, mourn over their past treatment of him, and turn to him en masse. Both the prophet Zechariah and the apostle Paul in the book of Romans foretell that happening at Christ’s second coming. When Jesus left the temple that afternoon, it was officially the end of his public ministry. He had more to tell his own disciples, but nothing more for the public, and definitely nothing more for the religious leaders who had rejected him from his first preaching tour in Galilee three years earlier. Up until these last words spoken to them that day in the courtyard of Herod’s temple. So why was Jesus so bold and so harsh in denouncing the scribes and Pharisees that day?

Well, for all the reasons above that I listed, but to put it even more bluntly, here’s why. It’s at verse 15: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, you make him twice the son of hell as you are yourselves. The answer is they, more than anyone else, opposed the truth of God that Jesus brought. They led people astray. They led people toward hell. Truth always carries with it confrontation.

If our reflex action is always accommodation, regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong. Right on, Francis. With Jesus, there was no shrinking back from the truth of who he was and what he offered, regardless of whether he and his message were well received or completely rejected. If we say we are his followers, then like Jesus, when it comes to those same essential truths of who he was and what he offers, none of us should be shrinking violets either. Thanks for listening. This is Paul for Share the Word.

Thanks, Paul. So are you a shrinking violet or a big, beautiful plant attracting attention, giving you the ability to lead others to Christ? The battle with authority and truth continues to rage, but Jesus never deviated from the truth. My question is, have you? We deviate for a host of reasons, but both have a cost. One is eternal, and the other is of the flesh.

One will last forever, and the other, maybe 70, 80 years. Are you willing to stand on the Word of God even when it comes at a cost? Because the Word of God is the truth, and it needs to be shared rather than being placed on your head in a box just for show. The cross around your neck, the Bible on your mantle, the Jesus sticker on your car. But if you never bring the Word of God to your lips to fulfill the Great Commission and share the gospel, how is that any different than putting a box on your head for all to see? Email us at info at sharetheword.org.