IN n Out

Looks are First

On November 8, 1895, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) becomes the first person to observe X-rays, a significant scientific advancement that would ultimately benefit a variety of fields, most of all medicine, by making the invisible visible.

Lexham Context Commentary: New Testament Final Four Woes (23:23–33)

23:27 All of the seven woes begin with the attention-getter “woe to you.” The address to the “scribes and Pharisees” and characterization as “hypocrites” occurs at the beginning of all of the woes with the exception of the third woe (23:16). This sixth woe is very much in the same vein as the previous woe, this time using the analogy of tombs rather than cups. Tombs painted with whitewash were bright and beautiful on the outside, but inside are filled with bones and uncleanness.

23:28 In the fifth and sixth woe, Jesus has used two analogies of things that are nice on the outside but not in the inside. Here Jesus now offers a comparative frame to equate the two analogies with the scribes and Pharisees. They care about appearing righteous to people (23:5–7; 6:1–6, 16–18), but on the inside they are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness

Thompson Chain Reference Bible Companion: A Handbook for the Classic Chain-Reference Bible Jn. 8:44

You [religious leaders] belong to your father, the devil … (NIV)

In Jesus’ day religious affairs were no longer controlled by true Jehovah worshipers; the priests, scribes, Pharisees, and other officials possessed the key to the temple precincts, but they were impostors and counterfeits.

God has never been dependent upon any visible ecclesiastical organization for preserving the faith, and this was certainly the case in the NT era. Interesting information comes, at this point, from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Manual of Discipline was revered by the Sect of the Covenant at Qumran, an intensely separatistic sect; they rigidly avoided the “Sons of Darkness,” contact with whom meant defilement and impurity. In The Manual of Discipline the expression “to be separated from all unrighteous men” (or “men of error”) appears repeatedly (1 QS V:1,a,10; VIII:13, etc.).

The tombs were whitewashed and some were marble

they looked good

their appearance warned people to stay away

Remove the lid and what do you find?

Dead Men’s Bones

This wasnt just a box with bones but these boxes once contained bodies and the bones represent DECAY!!!

The heart of a Pharisee is one that has the life-giving truth but because hypocrisy and choosing to be disobedient to the word of God -lawlessness- They have decayed to the point of a box of bones

ezek 37,1-14

Acts 17:24–25 “the God who made the world and all the things in it. This one, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives to everyone life and breath and everything.”

Impurities

works being done before men, greed, self-indulgence, lawlessness, hypocrisy, murder (next week),

The King James Version Apocrypha Sirach 18:30: Go not after thy lusts, but refrain thyself from thine appetites.

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, both joints and marrow, and able to judge the reflections and thoughts of the heart.”

Job 33:4 “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of Shaddai gives life to me.”