WWUTT 2086 The False Converts of the Pharisees (Matthew 23:15-22)

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Jesus said of the scribes and pharisees, Woe to you, because you travel around on sea and land and make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, when he becomes a convert, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

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When we understand the text. Many of the

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Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Matthew, we've been in chapter 23, going through the seven woes that Jesus issued to the scribes and the

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Pharisees. We're going to come back to that section again today, and I'm going to begin by reading verse 13 through verse 22 out of the

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Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. 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.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers, therefore you will receive the greater condemnation.

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

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

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You fools and blind men, for which is more important, the gold or the sanctuary that sanctified the gold?

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And whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.

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You blind men, which is more important, the offering or the altar that sanctifies the offering?

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Therefore whoever swears by the altar swears both by the altar and by everything on it.

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And whoever swears by the sanctuary swears both by the sanctuary and by him who dwells within it.

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And whoever swears by heaven swears both by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

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So last week when we were looking at these woes, we just looked at verse 13.

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It's the first woe, and it's really the one that caps off all of the woes that come after it.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people.

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You don't enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. And that really summarizes it for the

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Pharisees. That's it for their whole teaching. They're not getting in because they don't know the truth.

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They boast in their own righteousness. You can't get in to the presence of God by your own righteousness.

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We need the righteousness of Christ. Of course, Christ has not yet died and risen again from the dead, but we know that these

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Pharisees that Jesus is warning, they're the very men that are going to deliver Jesus over to Pilate and have him crucified.

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So they do not have access to God. As Jesus said to his disciples in John 14 6,

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I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the Father but by me.

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So these Pharisees don't get there. And by their teaching, if people follow what it is that they teach, if they even follow the example of the

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Pharisees, then they themselves will not enter in to the presence of God.

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So that first woe, really, all the rest of the woes come right under that umbrella.

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Now, verse 14, as I mentioned last week, is not actually in this chapter.

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You could skip verse 14 because Matthew didn't actually write it. And in most of your translations, either the verse isn't going to be there, like the

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English Standard Version skips from verse 13 to verse 15. I'm reading from the Legacy Bible, so it has that verse in brackets.

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And in brackets, which would also be in the New American Standard, that indicates that the earliest manuscripts don't contain this particular verse.

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Matthew didn't write it. Mark did. And Luke did. They include it in a different context.

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But some overzealous Byzantine scribe grabbed that verse from Mark and Luke and decided that Matthew needed it in his seven woes, and so they brought it over.

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Now, the possibility is that one monk had written, let's say,

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Mark 1240. Well, it would have been Mark 1240. They wouldn't have had the chapter and verse markers at the time.

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That didn't come about for several hundred years later. But they probably thought of Mark 1240 and wrote it in the margin as they were copying

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Matthew 23. And then over time, as those manuscripts got copied, what was written in the margin eventually got pulled over into the text.

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And so then when chapter and verse markers were added, because that verse had made its way into the text, well, then it gets marked with a verse.

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But now that we have access to more manuscripts and we have computer libraries in which you can look at multiple manuscripts at the same time, you don't have to travel to a certain place to look at manuscripts.

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We now have a library of manuscripts to be accessed from anywhere in the world. So you can compare those manuscripts, and in recent years we've discovered that what was written there in verse 14 was not in the earliest manuscripts.

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So Matthew didn't write it. Some scribe later on down the line had brought it into the text, but Matthew was not the original author of verse 14.

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Like I said, Mark wrote it and Luke wrote it. It's definitely something Jesus said, but as far as Matthew writing down these woes, that woe doesn't belong.

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And if you include that woe in verse 14, there's actually eight woes, when in reality what

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Matthew wrote down were seven woes that Jesus issued to the scribes and Pharisees.

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And like I said last week, that really makes more sense because seven is the number of completion, and this is a complete condemnation of the

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Pharisees and their teaching. These men, Jesus knows, are not going to be repentant.

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These are the very men, as I said a moment ago, who are going to put him to death. So Jesus says in the hearing of the people, these things about the scribes and the

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Pharisees, that the people would not go after their false teaching. So considering verse 14 again, and I'll give you the context from Mark 12, it says here,

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers, therefore you will receive the greater condemnation.

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And it's in Mark 12, 40 that we read that the scribes and the Pharisees devour widows' houses, and for appearances' sake offer long prayers, these will receive the greater condemnation.

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Almost word for word, exactly what you have here in Matthew 23, 14, in the added verse into the seven woes.

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Well, consider the context in Mark 12. It's not when Jesus is issuing the woes to the scribes and the

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Pharisees. He's actually warning his own disciples of the behavior and the conduct of the scribes and Pharisees.

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Consider Mark 12, 38. In his teaching, he was saying, Beware of the scribes, who want to walk around in long robes and want respectful greetings in the marketplaces, and the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets, who devour widows' houses, and for appearances' sake offer long prayers, these will receive greater condemnation.

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So there in the context of Mark 12, he's just talking to his disciples. Here in Matthew 23, he's addressing the scribes and the

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Pharisees. In the hearing of the disciples and the rest of the people who are there.

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Those who have been listening to him teach in the temple. Because remember, we're still reading about what is happening on Tuesday in that very week that Jesus is going to go to the cross and die in just a few days.

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He is going to be arrested late on Thursday night and then delivered over to the high priest who's going to deliver him over to Pilate who will send him to Herod, who will send him back to Pilate.

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All of that is coming up on Friday. So this is Tuesday. This is the last day of Jesus' teaching while he is there in Jerusalem.

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And so in verse 14, which is drawn from Mark 12 20, we have two different contexts that are going on there.

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In Mark 12, there's not these woes that are issued to the scribes and the Pharisees. It's a warning that's given to the disciples.

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And then what comes right after that, still in Mark 12, is the story of the widow's offering.

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You know this account, right? So in verse 41, Mark 12 41, Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and began observing how the crowd was putting money into the treasury and many rich people were putting in large sums.

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And a poor widow came and put in two lepta, which amount to a quadrants.

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You'll see in some translations, she put in two mites or two copper coins, which amount to a penny, you know, something to that degree.

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And calling his disciples to him, he said to them, truly, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all those putting money into the treasury for they all put out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty, put in all that she owned, all that she had to live on.

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Now, oftentimes that account, those words of Jesus are used to talk about how we should tithe, how we should give money to the church, even if you are giving all that you have, because we need to be like that poor woman who gave her two mites, her last two copper coins and dropped it in the box.

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And she received such praise and recognition from Jesus. That's not the context here. Because remember right before that,

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Jesus said to his disciples to beware of the scribes who devour widows houses and then immediately after that, you have an account of a widow coming and putting all that she had in the box.

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And Jesus said, they all put in out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty, put in all that she owned, all that she had to live on.

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What's the point that Jesus is making? This woman is a victim of their false teaching and their false practices.

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That's the point that Christ is making. He's not praising her for putting in all that she had. He is condemning the scribes and the

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Pharisees because they would not give her more. So that she would have more to live on instead, obligating her to have to give the last of what she has to the temple.

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They are, they, they devour widows houses. This woman whose husband had died and then everything that he owned went to the scribes and Pharisees who gave it to the temple, who claimed to have given it to the work of the ministry.

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When the ministry that they should have been fulfilling was caring for that woman. So just as what was said earlier in Matthew 23, 13, you are not entering into heaven yourselves and you don't allow those who are entering to go in tying heavy burdens on people and not doing anything, not even lifting a finger to help them carry those burdens.

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That's one of the things that Jesus had said previously in Matthew 23, four about these, about these false teachers, 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.

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That's exactly the kind of burden that the Pharisees will place on the people with their false teaching.

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So there's the explanation. There's a context to verse 14, but again, Matthew didn't write it.

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So you can really in accuracy, skip from verse 13 to 15. And here is where Jesus says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte.

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And when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Now that statement about you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte.

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That is that's somewhat hyperbole because the scribes and the Pharisees weren't missionaries.

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They didn't really travel around to make disciples of, and especially did not do this of Gentiles.

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Now there were Gentiles that would come into the Jewish faith. As a matter of fact, the practice of baptism was reserved for Gentiles before John, the

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Baptist comes baptizing. There was a mode of baptism that was practiced. And it was when a

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Gentile became a Jew, they would be washed. And then they would likely also be circumcised.

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If they were committing themselves truly to the Jewish religion, there were really two kinds of proselytes.

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There was the proselyte of righteousness, and there was the proselyte of the gate. And by proselyte,

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I mean convert. So either word, you know, they would be synonymous with one another. So a proselyte of righteousness is the person who would truly and fully embrace the

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Jewish religion. They would be baptized fully from head to toe. They would be circumcised and they would conform to all of the rights of the

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Mosaic traditions. So everything in the Mosaic law, they did.

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They, by all intents and purposes, they were a practicing Jew. This was a person who was a proselyte of righteousness.

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A second kind of proselyte was referred to as a proselyte of the gate. And this was a person who approved of the

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Jewish religion. They might renounce their paganism and claim to worship the

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Hebrew God. And they probably conform to some of the rights. Maybe they abstain from certain foods.

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You know, the foods that are mentioned in Leviticus chapter 11 that were ceremonially unclean.

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That person might not partake in any of those foods. They might honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.

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You know, there would be certain rights that they would keep, but they wouldn't be circumcised and they wouldn't be baptized.

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So this was a person who would be a proselyte of the gate. And a proselyte of the gate would still, therefore, have to stay in the outer court where the

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Gentiles were, because the sign that got you past that gate and into the parts of the temple that the

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Jews were able to access was the fact that you were circumcised. So because a proselyte would not be circumcised, therefore he would be referred to as a proselyte at the gate.

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He would have to stop there at the gate and not be able to go into the rest of the temple that the

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Jews had access to. So those are the two kinds of proselytes, proselyte of righteousness, proselyte at the gate.

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But again, the Pharisees weren't missionaries. These scribes and teachers of the law, they did not travel around and preach the message of Judaism and make converts.

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So for Jesus to say, you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte, that's somewhat hyperbole.

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There is also a sense of literalness to it. When you consider that there were synagogues all over the

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Roman empire. So indeed there were Jewish teachers that traveled by sea and land to get to those places, to build those synagogues, to continue the

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Jewish religion in the different provinces and areas throughout the Roman empire. I talked previously in the

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Gospel of Matthew about the Jewish province that was in Alexandria, Egypt, which was still part of the

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Roman empire. And it was probably there that Joseph and Mary went to when they were fleeing the wrath of Herod.

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They went to the Jewish settlement in Alexandria. So Jewish population that was there, they would have been among Jews.

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They wouldn't have had any contact with Gentiles because it was exclusively a Jewish residence.

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So you had, you had, of course, Jewish teachers that would have gone to Alexandria. There would have been a synagogue there for teaching of the scriptures and practicing their

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Jewish religion. So in that way, they did travel around on sea and land, but it wasn't for the purpose of making converts.

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Like they don't go out as missionaries to that place to make converts because the synagogues are there because the scriptures are read aloud.

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There were Gentiles that heard those things. They would encounter Jews. They would learn of the teachings and some of them would want to become converts.

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And of course there were certain things that a person had to go to or go through rather in order to become a

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Jewish convert. But Jesus says to these false teachers, when he becomes one, when you convert him, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves, because you're talking about a person who was a pagan.

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So they were already condemned for their paganism. When they died, they were going to stand before God and receive wrath and judgment, whether or not they had heard the truth about God.

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They were under the judgment of God because although they knew God, as Paul says in Romans one, they did not acknowledge him or give thanks to him, but their foolish hearts were darkened.

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And so already as a pagan, they were condemned. They were going to, they were already sons of hell, but now they've been converted into the

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Hebrew religion, believing that they worship the one true God and that now

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I'm going to enter heaven. Now I'm going to inherit eternal life because I've found the way to eternal life.

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It is through Yahweh. It is through the God that the Hebrews worship. Only the

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God that the Pharisees present to these converts is a false

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God. Really? He's not the true God of the old Testament. He's not the same God that Moses wrote about because the

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Pharisees have changed so much about God and about his rules, about his laws, about his statutes.

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And they are heaping burdens onto these proselytes, making them think that if I do these things that I have earned the favor of God, when what they're following is not really

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God's command at all. And so now believing that they're worshiping the true

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God, how much harder is it to convert them out of that and show them, you know, this isn't the right

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Yahweh that the Pharisees are talking about. The true Yahweh, according to who Moses encountered, who

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Isaiah encountered, who Daniel encountered. This is different than what these scribes and Pharisees have told you about.

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You see how confusing that would be, how hard it would be to convince them that they don't truly know

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Yahweh. And so now they've been made twice as much a son of hell. They were already a son of hell in their paganism.

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And now they've been converted to believe certain things about God that aren't true. And they're still a son of hell.

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Now, twice as much a son of hell as those scribes and Pharisees who had taught them these things.

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The next woe, I'm going to go through this a little more quickly. This is verses 16 to 22.

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It's the bigger section, but I'm going to go through it faster. Woe to you blind guides who say whoever swears by the sanctuary, that is nothing.

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But whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is obligated. Now, really what

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Jesus says in this particular section, some of what he is, is warning the scribes and Pharisees about some of the meaning is lost to us.

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It's not exactly clear what he means by this, you fools and blind men, which is more important, the gold or the sanctuary or temple, as it might be translated, that sanctified the gold and whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing.

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But whoever swears by the offering audit, he is obligated you blind men, which is more important, the offering or the altar that sanctifies the, the, the offering.

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So really, what it sounds like here is that the scribes and Pharisees were saying, you shouldn't swear by the gold of the sanctuary.

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You shouldn't swear by what is on the altar. You can swear by the altar, but you just can't swear by what is on the altar because that's the sacrifice that's being offered up to God.

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So what it sounds like the scribes and Pharisees are doing is they are saying that really what is sacred is what we do.

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Like the gold, we contributed the gold, the sacrifice that's on the altar. We contributed that sacrifice that is on the altar.

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And so they're saying that what they contribute is actually greater than the thing that it's on.

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The gold is on the temple. The sacrifice is on the altar. And so Jesus says, it's all together.

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You swear by this, then you swear by God. And that's ultimately what he comes down to in verse 22.

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Whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

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Now, this goes back to what Jesus had said about oaths and vows in the sermon on the

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Mount in Matthew 533. Again, you have heard that the ancients were told you shall not make false vows, but you shall fulfill your vows to the

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Lord. But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven for it is the throne of God or by the earth for it is the footstool of his feet or by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great

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King. Nor shall you make an oath by your head for you cannot make one hair white or black, but let your statement simply be yes, yes or no, no.

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And anything beyond these is evil. So the scribes and Pharisees are swearing by these things, sacrifices, altars, the gold, the temple by heaven, even.

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They don't swear by God, but we would swear by heaven. No, if you swear by heaven, you're even swearing by God and the throne that God sits on is what

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Jesus says, because what they do in these things is they try to show themselves as more righteous than others.

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See how committed to my promises. I am. See how serious I am in this commitment that I make, because I swear by this, that I will do it.

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It doesn't mean a thing. You are speaking of yourself as being more righteous than you really are.

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Simply let your yes be. Yes. And your no, be no, as Jesus said back in the sermon on the

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Mount. And really there are some parallels here. I'll, I'll probably talk about this another time because we're running out of time for this lesson.

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In particular, there are some, uh, like, like chiastic parallels. Some of the things that we've been reading about at the beginning of Matthew, we're seeing coming about again in the, in the latter part of Matthew.

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So there is kind of a chiastic structure here where you'll have things mentioned at the beginning, it builds to a certain point.

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And then in the second part of the outline, some of the things in the first half get repeated again, the building to a point in the gospel of Matthew would have been in chapter 16, where Jesus asked his disciples, who do you say that I am?

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And Peter confesses you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus says on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

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So that's really kind of the, the peak moment in Matthew's gospel. And as we've been coming into this next half, we've been seeing certain things repeated that we've read about in the first half.

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And this woe that Jesus gives to the scribes and Pharisees is just like the teaching that Jesus gave in Matthew five regarding don't swear by anything.

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You don't even have authority over your own head to make one hair white or black. So simply let your statement be yes or no.

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And anything else is evil, exactly as the scribes and Pharisees are being here.

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And so we must not swear by anything. I swear on the grave of my mother or whatever else that does not make your promise any more genuine to have good integrity and to do so before God.

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Then whatever you say, you're going to do, do it. And whatever you say, you're not going to do, then don't do it.

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Be consistent in your speech and your action here. The Pharisees have been saying one thing and doing something else.

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And that is why Jesus calls them hypocrites mask wearers. They show people one face, but there's another face with another expression behind it.

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May we be consistent in our words and in our actions in Jesus name, heavenly father.

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We thank you for what we've read here. And I pray that our, our confession of faith that we have as Christians is genuine, that we are genuine and we are steadfast and we are faithful in the confession of Christ whom we worship, whom we follow.

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And may we be consistent in our conduct and our speech that we show to other people as well, that they see this person who is a

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Christian behaves like Christ. They don't act like the world. They act like something else, something that is other worldly.

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And as we have this passion for Christ, our savior, knowing that it is only by faith in Christ that someone will be saved, that we are interested in going out in evangelistic opportunities, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with others so that others may come to faith in Jesus and believe.

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And they come to know the true Christ of the Bible. Keep us faithful in these things in Jesus name.

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We pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to when we understand the text with pastor Gabe Hughes.

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