But Woe to You

Matthew 23:8-28

Do you ever ask questions while reading the Bible, and if you do to whom?  My background of sales taught me to always ask questions of the person with the most insight on the question.  When looking at the Scriptures that person should be the Holy Spirit, who Jesus called our Helper, but often He is not the one we ask, often we run to a commentary, pastor or teacher. 

“But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant.  Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”  (Matthew 23:9-12)  These verses are not often the subject of teaching in Baptist churches I’ve attended, in fact I do not recall ever hearing them taught, and I must put in this discloser, that does not mean it has not happened.   But today in my need to get out of town early, I did not run to the Helper but to my Study Bible, and this is its take on the Scripture; As Jesus is teaching his disciples, this “Do not,” “it’s a prohibited use of honorific titles for spiritual leaders that might encourage a sense of superiority in them or detract from the reverence that is properly due the Father and Messiah.” (Page 1657 23:8-10 HCSB)

In the verses that follow we have Jesus beginning the sentence with these words; “But woe to you”, or “Woe to you” and “Woe” was a term used by O. T. prophets to express condemnation, as found in Isaiah 5:8-23.   Matthew gives this account of Jesus using the “Woe to you” in Matthew 23:13-15, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”  When you and I make choices in life leading us to a full-blown storm and though the highway looks great the bridge is out, and we are soon to end-up in the raging river with no hope of survival; who is a friend, the one that warns you, or the one who keeps silent?  Jesus confronting these scribes and Pharisees was out of love, not hate, it was also a teaching moment for His disciples, and for us.

When we get all religious and the building and the people take first chair over your relationship with Jesus, watch-out, you are very close to becoming a Pharisee.  As you read Matthew 23:13-28, remember religions end game is death, it easily becomes a corrupt system that looks for loopholes and manipulates the people who are naïve.   It has obsession with small matters and overlooks important ones.  Religious people often have obsession with ritual purity and neglect the inner spiritual purity.

My HCSB study Bible on page 1658, has this to say about Matthew 23:27-28, “The Jews in the first-century whitewashed the tombs in Jerusalem to alert people to their location so they would not get to close and defile themselves.   Jewish purity laws regarded the inside of tombs as defiled.  Jesus compares that to how these leaders looked, clean and respectable on the outside but inside they were corrupt.”   On this highway of life you need Jesus, a friend that will tell you “Woe to you” if you are very religious, but without a relationship with Jesus Christ, the “Bridge is out!”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice