Lesson 34<\/p>\n
Hypocrisy on Display<\/p>\n
Luke 11:37-54<\/p>\n
Many years ago I belonged to the Episcopal Church.\u00a0 One of the things I enjoyed was the ritual of the services.\u00a0 I pretty much knew what each Sunday was going to be like.\u00a0 I did not realize how much of what I had learned was imbedded in me until I attended a service in that church thirty years later and realized how much had changed.\u00a0 The denomination had switched from the 1929 version of the prayer book to something more current.\u00a0 I did not think the service had the same quality and flow to it as I had remembered from my youth.\u00a0 One of the dangers I have discovered from that experience is the real possibility that with which we become familiar can at some point lose its effectiveness and meaning in our lives.\u00a0 This does not mean that change needs to occur for change sake.\u00a0 I believe that anything can become routine or habit if I allow it to do so.\u00a0 At that point I find myself just going through the motions.<\/p>\n
For example, one of the things that I learned along the way about memorization is that to have whatever it is that you want to remember that material must be repeated for forty-one days.\u00a0 At that point it becomes engrained in one\u2019s life.\u00a0 Unless one meditates on the Scripture while memorizing, it becomes something learned by rote and has no meaning in life.\u00a0 I have to be careful that I do not become like the religious leaders in the time of Jesus and have church become a list of things that I do just to be accepted. I must understand that anything I do is done because I want to give back to God because He has accepted me as one of His children.\u00a0 I can do nothing to earn that love it is freely given.<\/p>\n
We in the church can get so caught up in doing things that we forget the real reason we come together as a body.\u00a0 Our programs and activities can become to us like the law to the Scribes and Pharisees. They have the possibility of becoming more important than the worship of God and serving His Son.\u00a0 We can know this is happening when we are afraid to stop a particular ministry that is no longer accomplishing the purpose for which it was started.\u00a0 It has at that point become the law to the person leading it.\u00a0 Somehow over the years they have taken ownership and it would be a personal affront to discontinue the program.\u00a0 We must open our eyes and remember that everything we do is temporary at best.\u00a0 What reaches into the hearts of people today may be totally different than when a ministry began.\u00a0 Let us make sure that everything we do is Christ honoring and would be what He would have us doing today.<\/p>\n
Luke 11:37-38<\/p>\n
There was one reason and one reason only that the Pharisee invited Jesus to a meal.\u00a0 He and the others with him planned to use the time as an opportunity to trap Him in order to be able to bring charges against Him. Jesus knowing why He was invited accepted and went to the man\u2019s house.\u00a0 He wasted no time in providing the opening which the religious leaders were seeking.\u00a0 Upon entering the house He immediately reclined at the table without first going through the ritual of ceremonially washing His hands.\u00a0 It was customary to perform the task after returning from the synagogue before eating.\u00a0 It consisted of dipping one\u2019s hands into a bow and allowing the water to run down the arms to the elbows before drying them off.\u00a0 This was not done for the purpose of cleansing of the dirt from a person\u2019s hands but one of the petty practices established by the religious leaders to indicate their piety.<\/p>\n
The reaction of the Pharisee was as expected.\u00a0 Although he did not say anything out loud, he was amazed that Jesus had just gone in and reclined at the table.\u00a0 He must have thought surely this man would not be ignorant of such a common practice which the religious leaders had turned into part of the law.<\/p>\n
Luke 11:39-41<\/p>\n
Jesus presented a picture of the spiritual condition of the heart of many of the Pharisees.\u00a0 Everything which they thought made them acceptable to God was really only for display of their piety before men.\u00a0 Even though their actions seem to be religious they had done nothing to change the condition of their heart.\u00a0 Jesus did so much condemn the actions of the Pharisees as He did their motives. The one example He used was to say to them the things like love and alms giving should come from a heart that is pure.\u00a0 What is done by a truly spiritual person will be obvious without all of the theatrics used by the Pharisees to gain attention.<\/p>\n
Luke 11:42-44<\/p>\n
As seen in Luke 6 a woe is a denunciation with a sense of sadness because of the actions taken by man.\u00a0 Here Jesus shared three things for which the Pharisees stood condemned.<\/p>\n
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Luke 11:45<\/p>\n
Having heard the words spoken about the Pharisees one of the lawyers present was highly offended.\u00a0 He felt insulted because by referring to those who rigorously kept the law, but were devoid of genuine faith, Jesus had also spoken of the hollowness of the lawyers. Although the Pharisees practiced the law, it was the lawyers who were the experts of the law.<\/p>\n
Luke 11:46<\/p>\n
The remarks of the lawyer led Jesus to a pronouncement of woes on him and his peers also. \u00a0The first had to do with their treatment of the Law of Moses. It was their interpretation that lead to the myriad rules and traditions that were in place during those days.\u00a0 It is the same as is seen today where laws by legislative bodies passed that balloon into thousands of pages of regulations needed to explain and enforce them.\u00a0 Just to take one of the Ten Commandments which simply states that the Jews were to keep the Sabbath Day holy. The Scribes had done an especially good job of limiting what people could do on the Sabbath.\u00a0 Sadly, for every rule they put in place they had figured away to lawfully get around it.\u00a0 One example of the violation of the law consisted in what it meant to travel only a certain distance on the Sabbath.\u00a0 By tying ropes at the end of the street where they lived they could extend the distance that they could travel.\u00a0 That is just one of the over thirteen hundred rules addressing what could be done on the Sabbath. Each of their rules made it almost impossible for the average person to keep the law.<\/p>\n
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Luke 11:47-48<\/p>\n
His second woe had to do with the prophets that had been so much a part of Jewish life. He charged them with being accomplices of the actions of their ancestors who had killed the prophets.\u00a0 The Scribes built tombs for the very men who had been killed because of their preaching.\u00a0 It was total hypocrisy to honor the prophets by providing a proper burial place for them and yet not heed the warnings from their mouths.\u00a0 Both they and their fathers had heard the words proclaimed by the prophets but had not paid any attention to them.<\/p>\n
Luke 11:49-51<\/p>\n
Jesus the very wisdom of God in bodily form spoke the mind of God as He indicated what was to happen to Him and the future spokes persons for God.\u00a0 The men who had agreed with their fathers by building the tombs would now be guilty of rejecting the Son of God and killing Him. Not only would He fall at their hands but those who were His followers would be martyred.\u00a0 Beginning with Stephen and James, all but John would be executed in different ways by the enemies of God.\u00a0 Because they were to carry on the tradition of their fathers they were guilty by association with their acts for the blood shed by all of the Old Testament prophets beginning with Abel and ending with Zechariah mentionedy in 2 Chronicles 20:14.<\/p>\n
Luke 11:52<\/p>\n
The last denunciation speaks of how the false teachings of the lawyers hindered the people from entering into the kingdom of heaven.\u00a0 Because they depended so heavily on keeping the law externally for salvation they chose to reject the idea that there must be a completed change of heart in order to truly have eternal life.\u00a0 Everything they did and taught was completely opposite from the message that Jesus brought.\u00a0 The burden on the people was so heavy that they could not see God as loving and compassionate but heavy handed and oppressive. Jesus showed the people was His Father was truly like.<\/p>\n
Luke 11:53-54<\/p>\n
Jesus left the Scribes and Pharisees to contemplate what he had said to them.\u00a0 From that point on whenever they spoke with Him they affirmed what He had said about them.\u00a0 They became very hostile and tried to trap Him into falling in the ambush they had set for Him.<\/p>\n
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Several years ago Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger wrote a book called \u201cSimple Church.\u201d This premise of the book was that a church that does a few things well is more effective than one who is a one stop shopping center for church programs.\u00a0 Their approach was a four prong way to carry this out.\u00a0 They pointed out that a church should:<\/p>\n
There are other books etc. which have reinforced this concept. There is a tremendous advantage by following the Simple Church model.\u00a0 People do not get burned out by trying to do too many things.\u00a0 They will remain passionate about the ministry in which they are involved because they are not having to concentrate on programs that do not fit their gifts.\u00a0 The final statement that should be made is the benefit of not continuing programs that need to die a natural death.\u00a0 We would no longer hold on to those programs that become like the law for the Scribes and Pharisees. Sadly, those who have their favorite programs discontinued will criticize those who stop those programs.\u00a0 Let us be honest and only continue those ministries that spread the gospel and bring people into the kingdom.<\/p>\n
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Lesson 34 Hypocrisy on Display Luke 11:37-54 Many years ago I belonged to the Episcopal Church.\u00a0 One of the things I enjoyed was the ritual of the services.\u00a0 I pretty much knew what each Sunday was going to be like.\u00a0 I did not realize how much of what I had learned was imbedded in me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-luke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}