[And he Walks With Me] Matthew 23
2 The scribes and the Pharisees were to be respected because they are seated in the chair of Moses. Christians must respect people by virtue of the position they hold even if their character and conduct do not warrant such respect. This means that we will strive to recognize the positive things that they contribute to us and society even as we reject anything that is contrary to the character and command of Christ.
3 Jesus here shares an essential message. Because most teachers are human, they will not be perfect. Often, that manifests in a degree of hypocrisy: they do not practice the virtues that they preach. It is important to prioritize teachers whose teachings and actions align more closely with those of God, but that does not mean that we must reject other teachers wholesale. We should listen to and follow their teachings that align with Christ’s character and command, but we should reject the things they say and do that do not.
4-7 The two biggest issues Jesus had with the scribes and the Pharisees and others like them were that they (1) expected more out of their followers than they themselves were willing to give and (2) expected attention and honor from others. In fact, their entire ministry might be summarized as doing the least amount they possibly could to get the accolades.
8-12 Christians are to reject the typical model of worldly authority and fame. Worldly leaders insist on their titles such as Rabbi, father, and instructor, and they demand unswerving loyalty, obedience, and subordination from their followers. Christ-like leaders, on the other hand, will be characterized by service and humility. They will be unassuming and inspirational rather than pompous and demanding.
13-36 Jesus now pronounced a woe upon the scribes and Pharisees and others like them. Woe, of course, is defined as “a condition of deep suffering from misfortune, affliction, or grief.”[274] It is important to notice that Jesus did not specify the nature of their woe. For some, it would no doubt be an earthly woe: their rise to prominence eventually resulted in catastrophe. Others, though, would continue undeterred on earth only to find woe in eternal judgment. Jesus did, however, specify the primary reason for the woe: they were hypocrites, teaching and preaching and demanding things that they were not willing to give or do themselves. Moreover, he then provided a specific example of their hypocrisy with each woe. Clearly, Jesus’ focus was on why the scribes and Pharisees would eventually suffer, and his point was to warn his audience to avoid such things.
13 The first hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees was that, while they were supposed to be leading people through the door of the kingdom of heaven, they were in fact turning people away. The image Jesus presents is of these spiritual leaders standing at the door presumably to beckon people to the entrance, but instead, they were acting as bouncers to turn people away. They did this in two ways. First, they raised the bar of entrance to an unattainable level by enforcing a complex set of rules that no one could fulfill. Second, their actions and attitudes were such that people lost interest in following a god who would endorse them. Beware both of these faults!
14 The CSB, NIV, and ESV all exclude vs 14 from the main text but include it in footnotes. This verse indicates that the scribes and Pharisees devour widows’ houses, abusing and taking advantage of people who are powerless to help themselves. They also make prayers just for show, suggesting that they pray long, ornate prayers that impress people but do little else. Do not be like these!
15 Now, Jesus criticized the scribes and Pharisees for going to great lengths to make a single convert, but instead of guiding them into godliness, they [made] him twice as much a child of hell as they themselves already were. That is, he was even more of a hypocrite.
18-22 The scribes and Pharisees were always looking for ways to escape their own commitments while enforcing the obligations of others. This led them to make arbitrary distinctions between oaths: some oaths were enforceable, but others were meaningless. Jesus rebuked them for this not because the temple or the altar were greater and therefore carried more weight, but because the one they represented is holy and demands that his people are holy. As such, his followers will be people of unswerving integrity.
23-24 The scribes and Pharisees were renowned for their adherence to even the finest detail of the law. Thus, they were very careful to pay a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin. This tithe, as it was called in the OT, was expected of every Jew. The spices could be used in a variety of things around the temple (e.g., incense), or they could be sold and the proceeds used to fund things around the temple. Yet, the same people who were so careful to tithe neglected the more important matters of the law of justice, mercy, and faithfulness. They made sure to do the things that people would notice and applaud, but the values and motivations that truly reflected the character of God were neglected. Jesus did not excuse them from tithing or any other superficial obligation, but he insisted that these things – i.e., justice, mercy, and faithfulness – should have been done without neglecting the others.
25-26 One of Jesus’ central indictments against the scribes and Pharisees is found here. The cup and dish are used metaphorically to represent their appearance and behavior. That is, they dressed respectably and met the requirements of the Mosaic law, but inside they [were] full of greed and self-indulgence. Thus, Jesus indicted their motives: they dressed respectfully and obeyed the law for personal gain. He also indicted their thought life. According to Matthew 5:21-30, sin is not merely what we do, but it can also be what we entertain in our hearts and minds. Therefore, we may never commit adultery in practice, but even fantasizing about it is sin. The scribes and Pharisees may have obeyed the law superficially, but inside, they longed to sin.
Jesus instruction – First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside of it may also become clean – is a key tenet of the Christian faith. Faith is not merely a program of behavior modification. The believer must be transformed from the inside out so that their thoughts and desires conform to the likeness of Christ. As this transformation occurs, behavior change will happen naturally (see Romans 12:1-2). Until this transformation occurs, it is impossible to please God (see Romans 8:1-11, and especially vs 8).
27-28 In some ways, this woe restates vss 25-26. However, the metaphor of the whitewashed tombs takes the message a step farther by focusing on the influence of the scribes and Pharisees on those who followed them. In first century Jerusalem, tombs were whitewashed so they would be highly visible against the landscape. This way, when a pilgrim came to town for one of the Jewish festivals, they would recognize the grave and avoid it because touching a tomb made one ceremonially unclean for seven days. In the case of the scribes and Pharisees, their superficially righteous acts may have concealed their inner corruption and made them look pure, but those who followed in their footsteps were thoroughly unclean and unacceptable to God. Thus, the indictment is expanded from mere hypocrisy to reproducing hypocrisy.
29-36 The scribes and Pharisees made a point of denouncing the Jews who ostracized and killed the Old Testament prophets (e.g., Jeremiah, Isaiah, Zechaiah). They insisted, we wouldn’t have taken part with them in shedding the prophets’ blood. Yet, they also took great pride in tracking their ancestry to the very people who did these things, and in biblical times, to be a son or descendent of a person was to be the same as that person. Jesus, then, was asserting that, though they may have cleaned up their act on the outside, they were just another generation of the same sinful people. Indeed, Jesus announced he was sending [them] prophets, sages, and scribes, but the people who insisted they would not shed prophets’ blood would kill and crucity, flog in your synagogues, and pursue from town to town. That is, they would do to Christians exactly what they insisted they would never do to people of God.
37-39 It is often tempting to berate those who oppose us. Indeed, read without these three verses, Matthew 23 would likely sound like a merciless attack or angry diatribe against the scribes and Pharisees. Here, however, Jesus’ real motivation and tone is revealed. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Jesus was not berating the scribes and Pharisees or anyone else. Rather, his tone was one of pleading as he aimed to reveal to them the destination of their current spiritual trajectory. When we address even the most bitter opponents of the gospel, we must adopt a similar tone of lament and pleading. Our desire is that they would be gathered to God and not left… desolate because they waited until Jesus returned in judgment and it was too late.
[274] “WOE Definition & Meaning”, n.d.