Pharisees and Good Intentions

Should we bring every area of our life into subjection under the law of God? Should we have a deep and profound respect for the law of God? Should we emphasize humility, deplore pride, and abhor hypocrisy? Should we emphasize love as the fulfillment of the law? If you agree with these principles, then you are in agreement with the foundation of the Pharisees. Upon these four concepts is built the entire philosophy of the sect of the Pharisees. This group was not one that was shallow or insincere in their devotion to God, and I think we sometimes callously dismiss them based solely on the picture of them we see in the gospels.

The question we have to ask ourselves – instead of why were the Pharisees so obstinate – is this: where did the Pharisees go wrong? Where did they come from, and how did they come to be so in conflict with the Lord? How did this group who stood so firmly against self-righteousness and hypocrisy become the epitome of those traits as we see them in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?

The Intention of the Pharisees
“Pharisee” means “separated one,” and, not coincidentally, we apply a similar concept to ourselves in the church. We see ourselves as separate and apart from the world, resisting worldly influences and preserving the traditions of Christ and His apostles. Likewise, the Pharisees began as a sect that resisted the Hellenization of Judaism. They sought to preserve the ways of Moses. They wanted to remain separate and apart from compromise with the Greco-Roman world. They were trying to preserve the old paths in the face of secular modernism.

Again, these were the ones who saw love as the wholeness of the law, very much as Jesus summed it up in Matthew 22:34-40. These were the ones who emphasized humility above all else in personal conduct. These were those who deeply respected the oracles of God and who sought to bring their lives under complete subjection to that law. Unfortunately, while attempting to preserve and protect the old paths, they built up an oral traditions that came to serve as a hedge of sorts around God’s law. This oral tradition was eventually codified as the Mishnah, and it became viewed as authoritative as any of the writings of Moses. Atop these traditions came the Talmud, the commentaries upon the Mishnah that also became a standard by which the people measured themselves.

For example, carrying a tool of your trade on Friday evening was wrong, for fear of working on the Sabbath. There would be rules surrounding when you could rescue an animal or put out a fire. These examples and more became the hedge built around God’s commandment to avoid working on the Sabbath. They forgot that their traditions were human interpretations, and they would condemn any who broke that oral tradition, blurring the line between scripture and interpretation. “My interpretation is law; yours is opinion.” The implications for us are evident.

Hypocrisy and Self Righteousness
In Matthew 23, Jesus speaks to the multitudes and His disciples regarding the Pharisees, those responsible for handling and passing on the law. Jesus even exhorts His listeners to abide by the teachings of the Pharisees. It is their example He warns against, expecting more of others than themselves, having words and actions that do not agree, seeking praise from men for their position. Jesus explains, in verses 13-26, that their hypocrisy was rooted in holding onto traditions surrounding the law more than the law itself – some of which circumvented those very laws they were intended to protect.

Verse 23 speaks to paying attention to the tiniest of details in the law while neglecting the intent and the attitudes behind those laws. Yes, those details are important, but they wanted to be so doctrinally pure they created problems for themselves. Not only would they expel sinners from their presence, but they would also not associate with those who disagreed with their traditions and private interpretations. They became their own standards of righteousness. In fact, Pharisaic tradition specifically named publicans as individuals to avoid in fellowship. Is it then so curious that we see publican after publican shown in a good light in the gospels? It is a contrast of how the Pharisees viewed others versus how God views them.

Jesus and the Pharisees
In their attempts to be righteous, the Pharisees had grown to be unloving, unmerciful, and contentious. Matthew 9:10 records the Pharisees wondering at Jesus taking the time to associate with those they would consider worthless, and Jesus rebukes them, reminding them of God’s desire for mercy and forgiveness. Also, Matthew 12:1-8 has Pharisees criticizing Jesus’ apostles for plucking grain to eat on the Sabbath, yet Jesus answers with their unwillingness to criticize one like David for breaking the Sabbath while being quick to condemn others. Again, Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6, bringing to mind the state of Israel and Judah in the days leading up to captivity. That prophet called the people’s love a fleeting thing, and Jesus was giving the same warning to the Pharisees. Rather than dismissing the word, though, the Pharisees had come to a point where they put themselves in the place of God.

Indeed, we must preserve the old paths. We must set ourselves apart form the world. We must respect God’s word above all else. We cannot, however, become unmerciful, unloving, and contentious in doing these. We must not set our traditions and our interpretations on equal footing with the word of God. If we had existed 2,000 years ago, we would have found ourselves closely aligned with the Pharisees’ ideals and goals. Let us be careful to avoid becoming what they became while clinging to God’s law.

lesson by Tim Smelser

"Be Not Afraid"

In Matthew 28, we read:

Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.”

While the resurrection is in the thoughts of many this day, stop to pay attention to the words that the angels said to the women: “Do not be afraid.” What would these women have had to fear? This is the resurrection, the core of the gospel message as Paul writes about in I Corinthians 15:1-8. In Acts 23:6, Paul again notes the resurrection being central to his teachings, and I Peter 1:3 reminds us that our hope is derived from Jesus’ resurrection. This is the event by which the death and burial are fulfilled. This is the source of our hope. Why, then, would those women be afraid?

From Fear to Joy
In Matthew 26, we can see that they had much to fear. In verse 56, the apostles flee after Judas comes and betrays Jesus, bringing with him armed men to forcibly take the Messiah if necessary. When Jesus was to be buried, only two came forward. In Mark 16:8 and John 20:19, we see again the fear in which Jesus’ followers lived.

While the faithful lived in fear, though, Jesus’ appearance after the resurrection brought them joy. In John 20, when Jesus appears to Mary in verses 11-18, she runs to the disciples to tell the other disciples. In Luke 24:13, Jesus appears to two disciples walking to Emmaus, and He asks them to relate recent events to Him, events they are surprised He does not seem to know. In verses 25-31, Jesus studies with them and eats with them, opening their eyes to Him, and we see them, in verses 33-35, responding in joy and longing to spread the news. Jesus goes on to appear to His apostles in the same chapter, and they disbelieve for joy. Thomas joyfully repents of his doubt upon seeing the risen Lord.

Face to Face with Jesus
Luke 5 records an experience Peter has with Jesus early in His ministry. Peter and others have been fishing all night, without success, and Jesus simply encourages him and his companions to try one more time. Doing so, they catch an unmanageable number of fish, and Peter, in verse 8, falls and worships Jesus, confessing His sins in fear. At this time, Peter wants to be far from Jesus because He is overcome with fear and guilt.

John 21, after the crucifixion and resurrection, something similar happens when Peter decides to again go fishing. Once more, Peter’s efforts are in vain, catching nothing all night. Come morning, a man instructs them to cast on the other side of the boat where they catch an unmanageable number of fish. Peter recognizes this man as the Lord – a man he had recently cursed and sinned against – but this time responds in joy. Instead of wishing Jesus away from him, Peter jumps into the water and swims toward Jesus to be with Him as soon as possible. Fear has melted into joy and confidence, and this confidence becomes central to Peter’s ministry throughout Acts, gives him strength against persecution, and becomes a key theme to his letters.

Conclusion
This is the impact the resurrection should have in our lives. When confronted with our sin and our weaknesses, we can approach our God confidently and joyfully. Confidence overcomes guilt. Joy overcomes sorrow. Forgiveness defeats sin, and death is swallowed up in victory. Because He arose, we have hope, and that hope should drive us to draw closer to our risen Savior, allowing Him to raise us up in newness of life.

lesson by Tim Smelser

Exhortation and Hope in Hebrews

When we look at some of the epistles, we can see a clear purpose behind the authorship of those letters. We understand the specific issues that motivated the authorship of books like I Corinthians and Galatians. In the case of Hebrews, we might turn to Hebrews 6:4 as a warning against apostasy. Chapter 13:7-9 warns against falling away to false teaching. We also see several contrasts between the Old and New Covenants; but the book was perhaps ultimately written as motivation – to move the readers of this epistle to action.

A Letter of Exhortation
Chapter 13:22 of Hebrews says:

I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly.

We sometimes us the words edify and exhort interchangeably. Where edify means “to build up,” though, exhort is defined by urging one forward, and the term is used in Hebrews at least five times. Hebrews 10:36 calls to a need for endurance, and those reading this book needed to be urged forward to that endurance.

The Hebrew Congregation
This book was written to Christians coming out of Judaism; the author makes this clear in Hebrews 2:16, and chapter 13:17-19 leads us to the conclusion that the author knew this group personally. Chapter 10:32-34 speaks to the strong character of this congregation – those who had suffered loss, persecution, and who have been compassionate. Also, based on chapter 5:12, this was not a new congregation, and they were a group active in serving their fellow Christians.

If all of these qualities are true, why would this group need such urging forward? They had been enduring persecution for years, and those years were taking their toll. Many of these may have been second- or third- generation Christians, and the author warns them, in chapter 2, from becoming sluggish, of drifting away. This was a congregation with a strong reputation, but the Hebrew writer could see beyond that reputation to a group that was beginning to wane.

Their Exhortation and Ours
The writer of Hebrews uses a series of “let us” statements. Chapters 4:1, 4:11, 4:16, 10:23, 10:22, 10:24, 12:1, 12:28 , 13:13, 13:15 – these verses and more call the Hebrew congregation to action, and the author includes himself in that call. He does not isolate himself or hold the congregation at arm’s length. We cannot move forward while remaining inactive, and we have to be willing to answer that call.

The Hebrew author continues by pointing their way to something better, especially before those who would return to the faith of their fathers and grandfathers. Chapters 7-11 lay out the clear case that Jesus’ sacrifice is superior to the Old Covenant at every point – a better country, a better promise, a better sacrifice, a better hope, a better priesthood. In the face of this, to what could we turn if we drift away from Christ’s message. There is nothing better.

The term eternal also returns time and again. Chapters 5:9, 6:2, 9:12, 9:14-15, 13:20 – these lay out what is at stake. Do we leave the eternal promises for the brief promises of this world? The point is one of perspective, enduring things now that will seem brief and insubstantial in comparison to the eternity that faces us.

A Message of Hope
The Hebrew writer ultimately exhorts his audience by pointing them toward hope. Chapter 6:9 talks about faith, endurance, hope, and love – all based on God’s unbreakable promises. In this, he calls on us to run toward a hope that serves as an anchor in the time of storms. The Hebrew writer looks to our hope in Christ, the hope of those who came before us, the hope of a better land, a steadfast hope that nothing can remove from us.

Sometimes, like Elijah, we feel as if we are the only ones standing on the side of God, but the Hebrew writer, in chapters 11 and 12, calls on us to look at those who came before. By faith, they accomplished more than we can sometimes imagine, and their faith was based in that anchor of hope. They are the great cloud of witnesses who surround us, who point toward Jesus, in whom we also have hope and assurance.

Hebrews 2 speaks to Christ’s abasement and sacrifice for all of our sakes, that we may have hope and can be called brothers in His salvation. Chapter 6:20 calls Him our forerunner, and Hebrews 12:1-3 names Him the author, the founder, the protector of our faith, conquering sin and death. We have hope because our Brother endured shame and the cross, sitting down at the right hand of God, setting down the path by which we may reach Heaven.

That is what we ultimately hope for – that Holy of Holies, that land beyond the veil, the place where sorrows cease to exist. Chapters 7:4, 9:24, 12:22 all point us toward that hope provided of us. It is toward hope we must push forward, enduring anything and everything this life can throw at us, pushing ourselves forward and exhorting our brothers and sisters to run with endurance toward the prize laid before us.

lesson by Tim Smelser

Service God Deserves

Jeremiah 2 records God remembering Judah’s former faithfulness and their slow descent into idolatry. In verse 5, God asks, “What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me…?” In other words, God wants to know what He had done to deserve the service, or lack thereof, He was receiving from then. We have to ask ourselves the same thing. When God looks down upon us, does He wonder why we have traveled so far from Him? Or can He look upon us and say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant?”

Seeking the Lord
In verses 6-8 of Jeremiah 2, we see one reason the people strayed from Him. They simply ceased seeking Him. Matthew 6:33 concludes Jesus’ thoughts about the cares of this world with this thought: “Seek first the kingdom of God.” Colossians 3:1-4 calls on us to die to the cares of this life and set our minds on things above. Simply put, God needs to come before everything else. He comes first, and everything else is just details – the demands of our jobs, the interests we wish to pursue, many of the things we think we need. Jesus promises us that God will look out for us; we should therefore be seeking Him before all things.

Fellowship with Our Spiritual Family
Jeremiah 5:26 and Jeremiah 7:1 both begin passages that call upon God’s people to reform their ways, to cease oppression, to be just, and to care for those in need. We so often limit our charity to our fellow Christians, but it is more than that. Now Colossians 3:12-14 clearly outlines how Christians are supposed to treat each other. We are to be meek, humble, patient, forgiving, and loving. Galatians 5:13-15 warns us against looking for problems, and Galatians 6:1-3 calls on us to bear each others' burdens and to look upon our brothers and sisters in Christ with compassion and gentleness. There are times when we will need to help each other through problems, and there are other times when we might be the ones in need of help. In all that we do, others come first. The days of putting ourselves first passed when we became living sacrifices to God.

A Perfect Sacrifice
Malachi 1:6-8 speaks to the people neglecting the glory and honor due God. They dishonored Him in their service. They were superficially spiritual, and we are too often guilty of the same thing. We come into worship, overly worried about how long certain acts of worship will take. Our minds are elsewhere while singing His praises. Back in Malachi 1, God decries imperfect sacrifices vowed to Him. We have promised Him our lives. We have promised to give Him the best, and that service continues whether we are within the walls of our meeting place or we are out in the world. Colossians 3:5 asks us to put away the material idolatry and blemishes in our own lives. When we vow to give our lives to Christ, we become a changed person, and we must be diligent to maintain that new perfection of spirit. This applies in worship, in how we treat our families, in how we conduct ourselves at work, in the way we treat others, in everything we do and everywhere we go.

Romans 5:5-10 reminds us of the hope we have because of the great sacrifice made for us. God gave us His best. When He looks down on us, does He see us giving our best in return? Do we present ourselves as living sacrifices, or does He ask Himself why we have gone so far from Him?

lesson by Kent Ward

Looking Upon the Cross

What do we see when we look at the cross? Do we see the sadness of the cross? Do we see the joy beyond the sadness? Do we see a definition of true sacrifice? Do we see the graphic nature of the violence of sin? It seems we never run out of material when speaking about Christ’s sacrifice or about the memorial of that event. Understanding the cross is more than seeing only the death, burial, and resurrection; for we see many things in that event. So too did the people witnessing that great event.

Those At the Cross
Matthew 27:36 records, in context of the guards dividing Jesus garments, that they “sat down and watched him.” What did those soldiers see? Did they see enjoyable violence that fed the thirst for cruelty embedded into them by a Roman military upbringing? These were trained torturers and killers; these were conditioned in the power trip that comes with inflicted violence. What did the crucifixion mean to them?

What of the rulers who time and again plotted against Jesus and had been anticipating an opportunity to rid themselves of this rabble-rouser? Did they see victory over an enemy? Did they see a culmination of plans and conspiracies? Did they see the elimination of an annoyance and a threat to their comfortable statuses? Did they take joy in His suffering and death?

How did Jesus’ fellow convicts see His death? One of those, a thief, saw a miscarriage of justice in Luke 23:39. This one recognized the justice in his own punishment but saw the injustice in that of Jesus. That single thief then makes a plea for Jesus to remember him to the father. This one saw his own worthy condemnation while recognizing Jesus’ blamelessness.

What did the apostles see? Did they see hopes and dreams dashed to pieces? Did they see the end of their movement? In Luke 24:17, two ask a resurrected Jesus if He is ignorant of the events surrounding Jesus of Nazereth, saying, “We hoped he would be the one…” They had pinned their hopes upon Him, but now He was gone, and they saw little hope.

What Do We See?
What do people see today? Do we see the entertainment value of the violence of the occasion? Do we see the crucifixion as an excuse for racial hatred? Do we see no more than an interesting historical note – one of the better documentations of Roman crucifixion? Do we simply see a man willing to die for his ideologies? We must be careful when looking at the cross, for we should be seeing much, much more than this.

When we look at the cross, we should see our sin and our need. In Acts 2:22-23, Peter lays the death of Christ at the feet of his audience while proclaiming God’s exultation of the same Jesus. Verse 37 records that the crowd was cut to their hearts. Likewise, we should see ourselves and our culpability in Jesus’ death. We should see our own helplessness. We should see our own sin putting Him on that tree. We too should be cut to our hearts when we look upon the cross.

We should also see and be grateful for the sufficiency of the New Testament over the Old. Hebrews 10:1 begins a detailed overview of the inadequacy of the ancient sacrificial system, how those sacrifices could never truly clean us of sin; but Jesus’ death can and does. Through the cross, God provides us a better and more complete way for us to reach salvation.

We should see separation from God in Jesus’ cry, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Isaiah 59:1-2 reminds us all that Jehovah’s hand is not so short that He is unable to save, but that our own sins block us from Him. My sin and my iniquity separates me from God, but Christ became cut off for my sake. God is just, holy, and upright, and sin cannot exist in His presence. The cross removes that barrier and allows us to draw to Him so we may be with Him.

Finally, we should see the majesty of the cross. Romans 3:23-24 reminds us that all have fallen short of God’s law, but Christ has been raised up as our propitiation – as our Mercy Seat – being both just and the justifier of those who have faith Him. In this is contained the extent of His love and His graciousness. Remember Romans 5; while we were unworthy, while we were set at enmity with Him, while we were yet sinners, Christ died on our behalf.

Conclusion
When we put all of these things together, we see not only the agony of the cross, but we truly come to an understanding of the agony of true conversion. Romans 6 speaks of conversion in terms of death. We have talked about the torture and violence of crucifixion, and Paul says we approach Him in the likeness of that death, our former selves crucified and our new selves dead to sin. These parallels are no accident. True conversion, a true changing of the heart, is difficult; it is heart-wrenching; it is life-altering.

To die to sin, to change who we are, to crucify self – these are challenges that will cause pain and agony before we reach the joy that comes afterward. When we look at the cross, we should see so much more than the surface details. We should see the seriousness of sin and the weight of our separation from God, and we should see the effort it takes for us to come to God. We should see ourselves, not only responsible for the cross, but hanging on that cross – dead to the world and alive to Christ.

lesson by Tim Smelser