The Pharisees of today

[1to3]

 

Matthew 15:18-20

But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

 

[Melissa7]

Legalism and judging others?

[listener24]

The same as 2000 years ago:

"And he continued, "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!"

(Mark 7:9, see parallels)

A clever way to sound legitimate in nullifying several teachings of the Scripture, in particular of the New Covenant.

Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. ⁷ You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

⁸ “‘These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
⁹ They worship me in vain;
    their teachings are merely human rules

(Matthew 15:7-9)

This was the main characteristic of the Pharisees, who claimed their Tradition as authoritative as the Word of God, because they said that it was "very old" and it "started with Moses".

"These men maintained an oral tradition that they believed had originated at Mount Sinai alongside the Torah of Moses; a God-given interpretation of the Torah. "

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees)

It's not hard to find the same behavior replicated by some.

Edited September 2, 2019 by listener24

[missmuffet]

The pharisees were hypocrites. 

[R. Hartono]

The rich pastors who never use the money from naive believers to feed the poor, Kenneth Copeland, Benny hinn, Creflo Dollar, Joel osteen, billy graham  etc etc.

[enoob57]

ignorance is ignorance....

[lftc]

On 9/1/2019 at 5:52 AM, missmuffet said:

What are some of the signs of being a modern day Pharisee?
1. Pharisees know what to say, but do not do what they say.

Hi MissMuffet,

a good question. 

Are you asking for people's opinions of the characteristics of a historic Pharisee, from when the sect was operational during the time of the Christ?

Or are you asking for people's opinions of the characteristics of people for whom they would use the term as a pejorative to describe?

Thank you, sister!

[luigi]

Like the Pharisees of the past who saw the signs, but refused to believe; so too are today's comparable Pharisees who see the signs spoken of in the Olivets, but refuse to believe them.

[missmuffet]

6 hours ago, lftc said:

Hi MissMuffet,

a good question. 

Are you asking for people's opinions of the characteristics of a historic Pharisee, from when the sect was operational during the time of the Christ?

Or are you asking for people's opinions of the characteristics of people for whom they would use the term as a pejorative to describe?

Thank you, sister!

Both

[lftc]

2 minutes ago, missmuffet said:

Both

I asked:

Are you asking for people's opinions of the characteristics of a historic Pharisee, from when the sect was operational during the time of the Christ?

Or are you asking for people's opinions of the characteristics of people for whom they would use the term as a pejorative to describe?

There are endless examples of people misusing a term lend strength to their statements.  In formal logic studies, this is called equivocation.  I personally try to avoid such things, although I do fail at most things I try. But in light of that I will only post my opinions on the historic Pharisees.

I am out of time, so I will not look up references for you, but as the history of the Jewish sect called the Pharisees is a matter that is outside the accounts given in the scriptures, I suggest that the reader of this post conduct their own research on the internet; just watch out for deception.

Here are what I think are the important points:

- the Jews had a bad history of keeping the law (we can know this from the accounts in the scriptures)  They pretty much failed at it all the time

- the Jews got conquered by outside kingdoms as promised by the LORD for their failures.  The southern kingdom was hauled off to Babylon

- while in Babylon, the leaders decided to institute groups to try to do better at keeping the law.  This is the origin of much of the practices of interpreting/keeping the law as we currently have in the various collections such as the mishnah and its derivatives.  There were various groups striving to maintain and amplify the teachings of the Torah, among them the Saducees. These were largely oral traditions until just before the time of Christ, when they began to be written.

- Somewhere around 150 years Before Christ, a new group striving to keep the Torah emerged - the Pharisees.  Their name means separatists.  They were very focused on precise following of the Law.  Josephus (the best extra-biblical history we have) says that they were very well respected by the people. As I certainly would expect as they were doing everything in their power to obey the Law.

- As you can tell from the New Testament, they were the dominant Jewish sect at the time of Christ.

That's probably enough of a history from me.  I expect others to hopefully quote the numerous passages about Jesus' interactions with them.  Just keep in mind who they were - dedicated to keeping and teaching the Law of Moses with understandings on how ot apply the Law to daily life.

Given the flame posts I got on other topics, let me be clear - I do not believe the Law ever saved anyone.  In fact, the Law itself never promises to give anyone eternal life.  Jesus does that.  But not through the Law.