January 13 - New Convert

January 13 – New Convert

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” (Matthew 23:15)

Matthew 23 tells of seven woes.  Six of them specifically call out the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites and one of the simply calls out the ‘blind guides.’  Jesus is pretty angry with the scribes (teachers of the law in the NIV) and the Pharisees.  They sit in judgment on the world around them, but are completely blind to the needs of the people.  In Matthew 23:5, Jesus blatantly tells them that they are doing things only for show – simply so that others will look at them.  They have showy prayer shawls, sit in the honored places at banquets and most important seats in the synagogue, they are thrilled to have people recognize them in the marketplace and be called “Rabbi.”

It’s easy to look down our noses at these very obvious arrogant sinners and sometimes it is easier to do that than it is to look at ourselves and wonder if we are any better than they were.

Matthew 23:13-14 tells us that they shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces.  Matthew 23:15 tells us that they corrupt new converts.  We find in Matthew 23:16-22 that money is more important than the house of God, they have twisted everything around.  In Matthew 23:23-24, the tithe to the temple is more important than justice, mercy and faithfulness and in Matthew 23:25-26, they are more concerned with how things look on the outside than they are with how things really are on in the inside.  Perception equals reality.  Matthew 23:27-28 continues in that same vein – whitewashed tombs – beautiful on the outside, but dead on the inside.  Matthew 23:29-32 accuses them of decorating the graves of the righteous, saying that they would not have killed the prophets as others did long ago, but Jesus knows better … they have already allowed John the Baptist to be killed and are plotting His death.

These woes should challenge each of us to review our own interaction with ourselves and the world.  It is so easy to allow bits and pieces of Pharisaical behavior into our interactions with people around us, justifying it with our good intentions.  But, like them, it is easier to become a brood of vipers than to offer justice, mercy and faithfulness.