Synoptics - Matthew 23

For me to be doing that, all I've got to do is fire up my iPad.

There's really no parallel that I need to be looking at, so it doesn't make any sense.

It's just Matthew chapter 23. I mean, yeah,

Matthew chapter 23. Just waiting for the last influx of people to come in.

However, Codex Ricotonius is with us, so it's showing its age.

There's no parallel, so Matthew 23. I mean, you realize that version of the

NIV isn't even published anymore. Well, yeah, there's sections.

Okay, we press on toward the precipice, and I'm not talking about the economy right now.

I'm talking about Matthew 24, for me, anyways. You know, it would be sort of fun to cover all of Matthew 24 in one shot, just one day, and we're on.

That would set a new record, and I would feel significantly more comfortable with that person.

Well, no, it wouldn't be TMI. It would just be a wee. Maybe for one day we could pretend we're at Southern Baptist Sunday School, because I remember back when our

Southern Baptist quarterly went through the book of Romans in like nine weeks. So you did 9, 10, 11 in one day.

You know, wee, and that's sort of how I feel about Matthew 24. But anyways, we've got

Matthew 23 first. And we started last week. Then Jesus spoke to the crowds, and his disciples, saying,

The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses. Therefore, all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds, for they say things and do not do them.

They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.

But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men, for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments.

They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by men.

But do not be called rabbi, for one is your teacher, and you are all brothers. Do not call anyone on earth your father, for one is your father, he who is in heaven.

Do not be called leaders, for one is your leader, that is Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant.

Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. Certainly, the first twelve verses have numerous parallels elsewhere in the

Gospels, but these serve as the introduction to the eight woes against the scribes and Pharisees that begin in verse 13.

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people, for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

Now, I have a note at verse 14, and I neglected to look up the information as far as I could switch over eventually here and look at the information, but there is a textual variant in verse 14.

It's not found in some of the earliest manuscripts. I'll have to look to see specifically which ones those are.

This particular program doesn't have that. Interestingly enough, the

Greek text below does not have verse 14 either, so it must be a number of the early unseals to not have that.

I'll have to look at that, but we'll read it anyways. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses, and for pretense you make long prayers, therefore you receive greater condemnation.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one prophelite, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

Woe to you, blind guides, who say, whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.

You fools and blind men, which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold?

And whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated. You blind men, which is more important, the offering or the altar that sanctifies the offering?

Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by him who dwells within it.

And whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness.

But these are things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self -indulgence.

You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish so that the outside of it may become clean also.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

So you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for 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 the prophets.

So you testify against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers.

You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? Therefore behold,

I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of them you will kill and crucify and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous

Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Then we have the single most commonly miscited text in the

New Testament that I have ever encountered, and I mean that sincerely. I have lost track now of how many times

I have heard the next verse misquoted by memory by many, many preachers.

Many, many preachers. 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 were unwilling.

Behold, your house is left to you desolate for I say to you from now on you will not see me until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the

Lord. Now, let me just mention, we'll talk about it much more when we get there, but what you hear is

Matthew 23, 37 quoted, how often I wanted to gather you together, but you were unwilling.

It is one of the favorite texts of the Norman Geisler's, Dave Hunt's, Calvary Chapel's of the world.

I can say it in just sort of a general way. And it is the text that goes to see,

God wants to be able to save, but he can't unless we're willing. That's not what it says.

And it would be really odd to have some sort of a discussion of the free will of man right at the end of that chapter.

You may have noticed it is a chapter of judgment, an oracle of judgment upon the scribes and Pharisees Who are they?

They are the leaders of the Jewish people. Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Who kills the prophets? What did Jesus just said to them?

You testify against yourselves that you are the children of those, the sons of those who killed the prophets.

The parallel passage is verse 13, which sort of stated the exact same thing.

Specifically, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people, for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

Here they have stood in the way of God's purposes, and they will be judged therefore.

So, people just... I'm almost surprised, honestly, when

I hear an Arminian quote Matthew 23 -37 correctly because I've heard it misquoted so many times.

In fact, that's what brought about, led to, is one of the incidents that led to the writing of two books.

What Love Is This by Dave Hunt and Debating Calvinism Between Myself and Dave Hunt.

Because back in, I think it was May of 2000, if I recall correctly, Mr. Hunt put out a newsletter where he misquoted

Matthew 23 -37. He just left out your children. So, he made the ones that were to be gathered the ones who were unwilling, rather than what the text is talking about.

That is, the leaders were staying in the way of God's purposes for other people. And, that's the way he quoted it.

Now, I took him to task for it. That led to a radio program. That led to his book and the other book and all the stuff that has come since then.

I've actually even heard R .C. Sproul misquote this, which surprises me. But, I certainly, it certainly seems,

I think if you were to, you know, you've often heard it said that if the entire New Testament was destroyed, we could rebuild the whole thing from the quotes of the early church fathers.

Maybe. I'm not sure how accurate it would be, but maybe. But, I think if the entire

New Testament was destroyed and all you had was the sermons of modern day evangelicals,

Matthew 23 -37 would have to be written down differently than it actually appears in the text.

Because, it is misquoted over and over again. Anyway, I wanted to read the whole thing so you have a sense of the drumbeat of condemnation, exposure, of hypocrites, whited sepulchers.

Just, just this flood that has been building up until this point.

And finally, when they cannot answer his question about whose son from Psalm 110, how can the

Messiah be the son of David when David calls him Lord? And they're like,

I don't know. And, given their position as leaders, this just exposes such a level of hypocrisy on their part, that you have chapter 23.

And last week I mentioned how much this is disliked in modern

New Testament studies because of its alleged anti -Semitism. Can't say anything negative.

Of course, the fact that Pharisees back then might not be exactly like the

Pharisees today, doesn't seem to enter into anybody's mind, but actually, though,

I've met a few Jewish folks that were identical to these folks. I mean, just nothing's changed at all.

But the idea that, well, that would lead to anti -Semitism and, you know, the

Germans had John 844 on their road signs and as we mentioned last week, you can abuse anything to your own ends.

But last week we started talking about this concept of the chair of Moses.

And I want to spend a little time on this due to the fact that this is one of the texts that will be thrown your direction in the subject of Roman Catholicism.

The better of the Roman Catholic apologists, and there are many of them out there,

I don't know if you all have noticed that last year we got our very own EWTN, Immaculate Heart radio station here in Phoenix.

I'm sure that you all listen regularly. I actually do listen every once in a while, especially when people who

I've either debated or I've debated them and they now wish that they hadn't debated me or they won't debate me are talking on the radio.

So it's a little bit of research on my part. Anyway, I do listen and you will frequently hear especially around midday a program called

Coming Home. And it's about converts to reverts to Roman Catholicism.

It's fascinating to me, it's almost never about people who were just plain old pagans and were converted to quote -unquote

Christianity. When you talk about conversion, the vast majority of these folks are talking about conversion to the church, not to Christ.

And they identify the two so closely together you can't make heads or tails out of one or the other and of course then you've got all the

Marian stuff and the all that stuff gets thrown in for the fun of it. And you will very frequently hear programs talking about how wrong those

Protestants are to all they've got is the Bible. From their perspective there's no such thing as the church, we can't learn anything from history, blah blah blah blah blah.

What they want to do is they want to present the church standing in the midst of time with her divine traditions guarding over the scriptures versus ignorant

Protestants under a tree with this Bible. There's nothing in between. I mean there's in between is a massive chasm and there's nothing there.

Which of course we know is not the case but that's how it's presented. And one of the arguments they'll make is well, here you go.

Chair of Moses, show me that in the Old Testament. Show me the chair of Moses in Genesis through Malachi.

Whether you accept the apocryphal books or not. Show me the chair of Moses. Jesus bound people to the authority of the chair of Moses.

Therefore Jesus bound people to an extra -biblical religious authority and therefore Sola Scriptura is not true because you're saying that's the very thing you can't do and yet Jesus did it.

So, how do you respond to that? Well, as I mentioned last week, the chair of Moses has been identified archaeologically as a structure in the synagogue upon which the person would sit in the reading of the

Scriptures. And so it was a position of authority within the synagogue structure.

Now we would point out the entire concept of the synagogue is unbiblical in the sense that it developed into the form that it had in the days of Jesus during the intertestamental period.

It developed during the time when Israel didn't have a temple, a temple was being built, or now you had people, you had situations where you had

Jews living outside of Palestine because of various deportations and things like that and they needed a center of worship and so a mechanism had developed called the synagogue and various traditions had developed around the concept of the synagogue and the reading of the

Scriptures and the prayers and all those other things, but you don't have Moses coming down from the mount with a type or a pattern of what the synagogue is supposed to look like.

And so the whole idea of well show me the chair of Moses is sort of like well show me anything about the synagogue.

I mean you can sort of start seeing a hint of it in some of the Ezra and Nehemiah how the people had to try to deal with being in Babylon and being away from Jerusalem and having no central place of worship and all the rest of that, but you just all the synagogue was something that developed over time.

Now, of course it might be relevant whether we translate it, seated themselves in other words they don't really belong there,

I suppose that might be relevant, but the point of the argument is verse 3, therefore all that they tell you do and observe but do not do according to their deeds for they say and do not do.

Things and them are in italics it's literally they say but they're not doing.

And so why would Jesus say therefore all that they tell you do and observe but do not according to their deeds for they say and do not do.

Well, it's pretty obvious where Jesus is going with this. They tie up heavy burdens, lay them on men's shoulders, they themselves are unwilling to move them as much as a finger they do all their deeds to be noticed by men this is a beginning of a denunciation of their religious hypocrisy.

But it still doesn't answer why Jesus would say just ignore these guys.

They're a bunch of hypocrites ignore them. That's the attitude a lot of people would say.

And if these guys are this bad and they are so hypocritical then why not just simply say have absolutely nothing to do with them.

Well that's the direction some people would take but what would that involve?

That would involve the denunciation and separation from basically all of Judaism.

And where was it that the apostles go to in the book of Acts? First and foremost in every city they enter into.

They go into the synagogue. And we are not told that they feel like they're doing anything wrong there.

We're not told that they well it's just not right for you to do that it's not right for you to sit there and listen to the reading of the law and when they're given an opportunity to read the scriptures and give testimony to the

Messiah they do. Now they know pretty quickly they're eventually not going to get to be there any longer but that choice they want to be made by the synagogue leadership not by themselves.

There was nothing wrong with the synagogue. There was nothing wrong nowhere in the

New Testament do you find the apostles saying it's wrong of you to gather and to read Moses and it's wrong to have these

God -fearers these people who aren't proselytes but they're attracted to monotheism they recognize the coherence of a monotheistic worldview and the morals that flow from that and they don't want to sacrifice to animals to these pagan deities and gods and all the rest of this stuff you never find anything that's all wrong not at all it becomes their primary mission field in fact and so what

Jesus is doing here is if they are sitting in the seat of Moses what are they supposed to be doing they're supposed to be reading the scriptures they're supposed to be expounding

God's law and God's truth and Jesus doesn't come along as a revolutionary and say ah just throw it all over it's a little bit like what happened during the reformation when

Rome's authority began to collapse primarily from the inside but began to collapse what was one of the toughest challenges for the reformers was maintaining some sort of order in the absence of what had been the authority for so many centuries and resisting the temptation to do anarchy and radicalism and that is a temptation of mankind

I don't know if any of you saw the news yesterday but there were riots in London burning of a double -decker bus and buildings and so on and so forth and then there was another thing somewhere in Michigan I believe rampaging youths after a state fair and stuff and that kind of anarchy is unfortunately a part of fallen man's nature rebellion wants a little bit of authority is lifted let's just throw it all off and what did some of those groups do they not only threw off Rome they end up throwing off everything throwing out the doctrine of the trinity or substitutionary atonement let's just get rid of it all let's just start all over again we're wiser than anyone's ever lived before us and so some people would look at the hypocrisy of the scribes and say

I just throw it all out Jesus doesn't do that if they are seated upon the chair of Moses they're reading from the scriptures you don't overthrow the authority of the scriptures and you don't disrespect the people that are reading the scriptures either but you exercise proper discernment and that's where a lot of people miss it on the other end and that is what they tell you do and observe but don't be an airhead that's the very paraphrastic loose translation but do not do according to their deeds for they say and do not do and the illustrations he's going to use are look the things they're saying are good things but they've lost their balance they will stand in the city square and they want everyone to greet them and call them rabbi and they will blow trumpets when they put their wad of cash into the temple treasury so that everyone can see just how wonderfully righteous and generous they are well is there something wrong with giving the temple treasury no is there something wrong in doing religious deeds no as long as you have the right motivations for doing it and what's this whole chapter about you don't even know what the motivations are to be anymore you have become so focused upon the action the outward you're so worried about looking at the outside of the cup and making sure there's nothing on it you don't even notice the grime and grit and disgusting mold inside you've become so focused on the external that you no longer see that the internal is what should result in the external you should have done all these things but you've neglected the weightier matters of the law you've lost your balance and so when

Jesus says therefore all they tell you do and observe he's not violating what he said in Matthew chapter 19 when he overthrew the

Korban rule because Moses never said anything about that if they're sitting in the chair of Moses they're reading the scriptures anything that's going to come from that do and observe but recognize the hypocrisy of these individuals and he's not saying oh and all their unbiblical traditions hey as long as they're up there you go ahead and do that too you go ahead and overthrow the scriptures and give your wealth to the temple so you can't help your parents and blah blah blah it says no you don't do that all they tell you do and observe but do not do according to their deeds they say and do not do so when someone tries to say ah here there's we found it interestingly enough the attempts on the part of Roman Catholic apologists to find some way of substantiating their grossly unbiblical view of the

Bible tradition so on and so forth often leads to interesting conundrums and that is well some of you have mentioned this before maybe you've forgotten it but years and years ago

I did a radio program with Jerry on a radio station in Boston and I asked him an off the top of my head question

I had never thought of it before because we were talking about this subject and I said

Jerry said how did a man who lived 50 years before Christ know that Isaiah and 2

Chronicles were scripture see his argument was without Rome's authority we can't know we've got to have

Rome's authority or the Bible is unknowable we can't know what the canon is we can't know what it teaches you've got to have

Rome's authority for all this stuff Rome never defined the canon of scripture at best

Rome has infallibly defined the meaning of 7 verses of scripture and there are people who say that's too big a number that's a real small percentage so none of that actually makes any functional sense but we were arguing the issue of the canon and he was saying you've got to have an infallible authority okay

Jerry 50 years before Christ how did the believing Jewish man know that Isaiah and 2

Chronicles are scripture I don't think it's arguable they knew because Jesus holds them accountable in this very book have you not read what was spoken to you remember

Matthew chapter 19 we were just there a number of weeks ago now the he couldn't come up with an answer he had never been challenged on that level before so since then

I've repeated that question and I've heard entire radio programs where people were trying to deal with this issue and the answers have been really interesting one guy said well the only way he could really know was by the

Urim and the Thummim which were the had to do with the high priest vestments but one answer that I got was well by reference to the

Jewish Magisterium the Jewish Magisterium really really that's the same

Jewish Magisterium that never accepted as canonical the books that Rome says we have to accept as canonical called the

Apocrypha right so when did when were they infallible and when did they cease being infallible that didn't work very well either it really isn't the answer to the question as long as you think that there needs to be some external counsel infallible pope something the

Jews didn't have that and so obviously someone could know what scripture was without this kind of external infallible authority that Rome attempts to come up with and so that's why that's why we need to think about these things and when you look at this you go well if if you want to go with chair of Moses means something that Jesus bound people to when did you unbind yourself from this because there wouldn't have been anyone sitting in the seat of Moses reading the books you call canon scripture such as 2nd

Maccabees and so wouldn't that contradict your practice but at that point you just say well the pope says and you move on from there that's how it works so we go back to the actual text itself and this begins once he says do not do according to their deeds for they say and do not do there is what is one of the fundamental issues of the book of James don't be somebody who says and doesn't do and there needs to be a consistency between the two they tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger well what would that be well obviously the scrupulousness of their law keeping had become an issue of no longer looking at the purposes of the law and obeying from the heart it had become an external issue we saw this is the result of all these encounters what's one of the very first encounters

Jesus heals on a Sabbath how in the world could anyone be angry about that how the world could the

Jews waiting for the Messiah see God's power exercised and see a person freed from some kind of horrible suffering and be upset about it all because of the day so how often did

Jesus have to correct their understanding even of the purpose of the Sabbath they had turned it into this external thing they didn't see what came first what the origin all of it was just the external stuff here's exactly how far you can walk and here's exactly how heavy a thing you can carry and it's just all this stuff and they've tied these massive burdens so much so that the the people of the land sure they may have looked

Pharisees as being tremendously holy people but they also basically felt like well if that's what it takes

I'm never gonna I can't ever expect God's grace because I can't do all that not possible just impossible and so they had tied these heavy burdens but they themselves would not move them with so much as a finger they would not anyone who becomes a legalist becomes very much self -focused upon my accomplishments almost to the point where if somebody else is likewise doing their accomplishments it's almost a competition it's keeping up with the

Joneses type thing you know if I have my phylactery box and it's just the best in Jerusalem and then three weeks later

Ben Therak ends up coming out with the new edition of the phylactery box which makes mine look like it's dated well now

I gotta get a bigger and nicer phylactery box and I can't rejoice that he has a pretty phylactery box now either you know it just becomes this silly type of a situation and so the idea of helping others or coming alongside or just that kind of legalism just doesn't even suggest itself and it becomes threatening when somebody else it's almost like competition for the grace of God and there of course can be no such thing but they do all their deeds to be noticed by men for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments once again the external the

Jews developed particular clothing that had spiritual significance and it's perfectly understandable how these things started

I mean have you ever seen a I think it's a mezuzah I have a few of them

I bought them at a Jewish bookstore and it's normally just a small little thing can be made of various things and it'll have some

Hebrew writing on the front and inside you have a small piece of parchment on which have been written normally the ten words or the

Shema or something like that and put on the door post of your house well isn't that exactly what

Levitical law said Deuteronomy you know when you're walking in the way and you'll put these on the post of your house and in other words the point is that these divine precepts are supposed you're supposed to be immersed in them in all of your life it's not like well when

I go to temple then I'm religious but then when I'm not at temple I'm just living like the pagans next door it's supposed to be you as you walk in the way and as you walk and talk with your children and as you walk and talk with others in the community there is this discussion of the things of the

Lord and the things of God and how it's supposed to be and so traditions would start someone would come up with a great idea you know

I'm going to put tassels on my garments that remind me of the names of Yahweh you know

Yahweh is my redeemer and Yahweh is my place of hiding and all these wonderful names and stuff like that and I'm going to put these tassels on my garments and every time

I look at them they're going to remind me of God's goodness to Israel and what

I'm called to be as a faithful Israelite to reflect God's glory to the nations great idea great idea wonderful only one problem is you know what if someone puts tassels on their garments because well now that's what you do grandpa did it dad did it and so now

I'm going to do it and since I I really want to advance in Judaism and I sort of like how people treated grandpa and my dad

I like how they got great greetings in the marketplace and you know the crowd sort of parts to them that's what

I want too so I'm going to have tassels on my garments but theirs are only an inch long

I think three inches would be good and you see the movement away from the original intention to something completely different so that eventually you have something that has become nothing more than pure religious hypocrisy no longer it's really easy to look back at what it once meant and it's not impossible for someone to begin a reformation movement and bring it back to those original things but the fact of the matter is religion makes for a wonderful way of self aggrandizement when abused and Jesus is talking about the issues of the heart they do all their deeds to be noticed by men not by God they do what they do for an outward show to men they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments because this is religious and it says

I'm a righteous man well no it doesn't say you're a righteous man it says you're a religious man the two should be synonymous but they're not always they love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues and you see this even to this day you see this kind of religious activity amongst the

Jews and amongst everybody let's face it it's real easy to be pointing the fingers here but is there not sort of the same type of culture even amongst evangelicals

I mean we see this there are certain folks that you just mention the name and boy people are going to line up around the block just to get a book signed or you know something like that and it can be a stumbling block it can be a real problem especially if the person starts sort of getting hooked on that well this is sort of cool

I sort of like this and there are certain big big big names in any group and those names automatically start carrying all sorts of authority and people start bowing down and things like that thankfully there is at least naturally amongst evangelicals who know why they're evangelicals some kind of a resistance to the personality cult that's natural amongst us but goodness look at how the

Pope is treated even to this day oh sure he's got his critics but look at how

Pope John Paul II was treated look at the fast track to sainthood that's going on for him amazing to observe well we think we found the miracle you know such a person was healed because they prayed to John Paul II after he died and now they've been healed and therefore there's the miracle and we're going to research this and get the doctors to say this and it's pretty soon boom canonization he's a saint but even then the bowing and the scraping in Catholic countries to this day those in positions of high leadership go down to southern

Mexico and watch the priest walk down the road there are parallels even outside of what you see you certainly still see this amongst the chief rabbis amongst the

Jews and Jewish communities not much has changed the tassels on the prayer shawls and everything else still very much intact but they love the place of honor at banquets notice that they love that maybe initially they might have been given that place out of appreciation for a great sermon they preached but now they love that they and when they don't get it look out they will be offended and they will let you know and if you sit in their seat in the synagogue it's sort of like if somebody sits in one of our seats don't you know where you're supposed to be sitting come on now don't you see the plaque there yeah it's not there but we see it we will run out of time we'll continue our examination of Jesus' examination of the