Woe to pharisees and lawyers. Lk 11:37-54 Part 1
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Have you ever noticed how much of scripture, and especially the gospels, is aimed at the heart?
God wants us to have a knowledge of him.
So much so that as Paul says in Romans
19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
All mankind has a sense of the eternal.
11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
The tragedy comes in that we man by his unrighteousness suppresses the truth.
and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
God doesn’t want us to simply know about him though, to have a head knowledge of God.
God wants our hearts.
To have our hearts is to be in relationship with him.
In our passage this morning we see Jesus addressing exactly that fact.
Knowledge about God is necessary, but what you do with that knowledge is of the utmost importance.
37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. 38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. 42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.” 45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” 46 And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. 52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” 53 As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
I want to begin this morning by first exploring the two main groups of people listed in this passage.
The Pharisees and the lawyers.
What exactly is a pharisee?
What exactly is a pharisee?
Pharisees were members of a Jewish party that exercised strict piety according to Mosaic law.
The Pharisees developed a tradition of strict interpretation of the Mosaic law,
developing an extensive set of oral extensions of the law designed to maintain religious identity and purity.
The Lexham Bible Dictionary Introduction
The origin of the term “Pharisee” comes from the Aramaic word פרשׁ (prsh), which means “to separate,” “divide,” or “distinguish.”
The Pharisees kept themselves apart both socially and theologically from any who associated with Greco-Roman culture and the uneducated commoners.
Some were so committed to separation from Hellenism that they were willing to take up arms in defense of their beliefs, even against fellow Jews.
What exactly is a lawyer?
What exactly is a lawyer?
This term is primarily used by Luke in his gospel to reference those who were well educated in the Law of Moses.
The other common name for these people were the scribes.
So when you see those two, think of them interchangeably.
When the Jews returned of exile, the scribes or lawyers formed and became a class of scholars who taught, copied, and interpreted the Jewish Law for the people.
The apocryphal book of Syrach gives a glimpse of the activity of a scribe.
The New Revised Standard Version The Activity of the Scribe
The Activity of the Scribe
How different the one who devotes himself
to the study of the law of the Most High!
39 He seeks out the wisdom of all the ancients,
and is concerned with prophecies;
2 he preserves the sayings of the famous
and penetrates the subtleties of parables;
3 he seeks out the hidden meanings of proverbs
and is at home with the obscurities of parables.
4 He serves among the great
and appears before rulers;
he travels in foreign lands
and learns what is good and evil in the human lot.
5 He sets his heart to rise early
to seek the Lord who made him,
and to petition the Most High;
he opens his mouth in prayer
and asks pardon for his sins.
6 If the great Lord is willing,
he will be filled with the spirit of understanding;
he will pour forth words of wisdom of his own
and give thanks to the Lord in prayer.
7 The Lord will direct his counsel and knowledge,
as he meditates on his mysteries.
8 He will show the wisdom of what he has learned,
and will glory in the law of the Lord’s covenant.
9 Many will praise his understanding;
it will never be blotted out.
His memory will not disappear,
and his name will live through all generations.
10 Nations will speak of his wisdom,
and the congregation will proclaim his praise.
11 If he lives long, he will leave a name greater than a thousand,
and if he goes to rest, it is enough for him.
Luke uses the term Lawyers to help his readers understand.
We know lawyers study, interpret, and apply the law.
How are they different and how are they similar?
These groups were similar, but distinguished themselves from each other.
The Pharisees were more rigid and had that oral code that they had to follow and believed that you were not a good Jew if you did not follow the code with them.
Therefore they could not associate with anyone who did not follow their code, hence the same - separate.
The key point about each of them is that they both had a very legalistic view on how to live life in relation to God.
You must follow the law perfectly, you must follow the rules perfectly.
There is no grace available for mistakes that are made and both believed that they were superior because of their outward show of keeping the law.
Our setting is at a meal, a Pharisee asked Jesus to dine with him.
Our text says
38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner.
Which begins the conversation and rebuke from Jesus.
Jesus failed to keep one of the spoken but unwritten rules that the Pharisees had made.
Is it good to wash before you eat, of course!
But the Pharisees had made it part of a ritual, they had said that it was a necessary part of their being in relationship with God.
Jesus knowing this mans heart speaks to him.
39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.
Jesus begins by showing the hypocritical nature of their belief.
Jesus argument is one that is quite plain and uses the everyday objects that are sitting at the table in front of them.
Luke Original Meaning
The general complaint is that the Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside there is the filth of extortion and greed.
Who has ever had a cup that they washed (or thought was washed).
It was put away in the cupboard, you take it out and put drink in it, make milk, you drink it part way down and their stuck to the inside of the cup is some leftover of something that wasn’t washed out.
That is the feeling Jesus wants to give here.
That feeling of grossness.
Jesus first rebuke really comes in verse 40
40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also?
If you only clean the outside, does it really matter?
God created the whole person.
God wants the whole person.
God wants all of me, all of you.
It is great if we clean our actions, clean up our speech, clean up our lives on the outside.
But it is the inside that really matters.
This is the point Jesus has been trying to get to all along.
Think of the sermon on the mount, in that section of Luke back in chapter 6 Jesus spoke of loving your enemies, of judging others, a tree and its fruit.
In Matthew
21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Do the thoughts inside your head give you that same eww feeling as drinking from a dirty cup?
Jesus continues saying
41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
Now if you are reading from a NKJV, NIV, or NLT those translations make a different point of this verse.
Those translations make it seem as though Jesus was saying to give the things inside the cup to the poor.
41 So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over.
41 But rather give alms of such things as you have; then indeed all things are clean to you.
41 But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
These are a little off base.
Greek literal - but the things within give charitably.
This is a call to give those things up, to give those things over to God.
The context of our passage goes back to talking about the light and the dark within you.
Being care that the light in you be darkness.
Jesus is using this metaphor, connecting it to another common everyday act of the day, giving to the poor to call on people to change.
Giving to the poor in the culture was very important.
In the Jewish history book of Tobit the statement is made
The New Revised Standard Version Raphael’s Exhortation
8 Prayer with fasting is good, but better than both is almsgiving with righteousness. A little with righteousness is better than wealth with wrongdoing. It is better to give alms than to lay up gold. 9 For almsgiving saves from death and purges away every sin. Those who give alms will enjoy a full life, 10 but those who commit sin and do wrong are their own worst enemies.
Freely give up those harmful things within that you are holding on to.
Don’t close your fist upon lust, upon greed, upon anger, retaliation, hate, unforgiveness, malice, envy, strife.
Don’t hold on to those things, give them up freely as you would give to the poor.
Jesus is instructing people to give the type of energy you give to the outward act of giving to the poor.
People of the day gave a significant amount of energy to giving to the poor.
Give that energy to the care of your heart.
How is your heart today?
Are you giving energy into its care?
This is something that I have to ask myself as well.
Am I taking care of my heart?
What is going on with my soul?
A question that is important to ask and a question that I want to help each of us to ask ourselves in the coming weeks.
If you would like to be reading ahead a little, my plan is to finish this chapter and them look to a couple of Psalms, 42-43.
Often Christians today are called hypocrites.
That is one of the main excuses that many non-Christians give for not wanting to come to church.
I don’t want to go because the church is full of a bunch of hypocrites.
While there there are a couple of difficulties in this view.
The first has to do with the individuals in the church.
People that are not taking their relationships with Jesus seriously.
Simply going to church on Sunday to check that box.
As Jesus describes here, washing the outside of the cup but not the inside.
A whitewashed tomb, looking clean on the outside, but dead on the inside.
Dr. D. James Kennedy responded to this objection by replying, “Well, there’s always room for one more.”
He cautioned people that if they found a perfect church, they ought not to join it, since that would ruin it.
But the charge that the church is full of hypocrites is false.
Though no Christian achieves the full measure of sanctification in this life, that we all struggle with ongoing sin does not justly yield the verdict of hypocrisy.
A hypocrite is someone who does things he claims he does not do.
Outside observers of the Christian church see people who profess to be Christians and observe that they sin.
Since they see sin in the lives of Christians, they rush to the judgment that therefore these people are hypocrites.
If a person claims to be without sin and then demonstrates sin, surely that person is a hypocrite.
But for a Christian simply to demonstrate that he is a sinner does not convict him of hypocrisy.
The inverted logic goes something like this:
All hypocrites are sinners. Ryan is a sinner; therefore, Ryan is a hypocrite.
Anyone who knows the laws of logic knows that this syllogism is not valid.
If we would simply change the charge from “the church is full of hypocrites” to “the church is full of sinners,” we would be quick to plead guilty.
The church is the only institution I know of that requires an admission of being a sinner in order to be a member.
The church is filled with sinners because the church is the place where sinners who confess their sins come to find redemption from their sins.
So in this sense, simply because the church is filled with sinners does not justify the conclusion that the church is filled with hypocrites.
All hypocrisy is sin, but not all sin is the sin of hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is a sin with which Christians must grapple.
A high standard of spiritual and righteous behavior has been set for the church.
We often are embarrassed by our failures to reach these high goals and are inclined to pretend that we have reached a higher plateau of righteousness than we’ve actually attained.
When we do that, we put on the mask of the hypocrite and come under the judgment of God for that particular sin.
When this happens it should cause us to run the Christ and the cross and the grace he provides.
We have to find in Christ, not a mask that conceals our face, but an entire wardrobe of clothing, which is His righteousness.
It all must begin at the cross trusting in Jesus, that he made the payment for your sin, a payment that you owe but can never pay.
Something you can received today if you have not already.
It’s convenient to create a picture of a hypocrite and then distance oneself from that portrait.
But this tendency is, in itself, a sign of hypocrisy.
We’re much better off when we put our sins in the worst possible light
– noting just how much they affect the heart of God and the people around us.
Seeing the true state of our sin elicits humility and confession.
Minimizing our sin elicits excuses and self-justification, speeding up our descent down the road of rebellion.
How is your heart today?
What is going on with your soul?