Sincere Faith: An Exposition of Matthew 23:1-12
Everyone wants to feel important. People want to display their titles and achievements. Everyone wants to have a lot of followers on social media. People want to become influencers. Not only does it bring prestige, but it can also be quite profitable. People go to great lengths to be noticed and become quite depressed when they don’t. People do desperate things for just fifteen minutes of fame. It is kind of a flare. It is a call for help. People in churches, including leaders in the church, have this same lust to be noticed. Is this a good thing or a sign of inner insecurity? Let us see how Jesus deals with this.
In today’s passage, Jesus had just finished silencing the Pharisees after silencing the Sadducees as well. From this point, they did not dare to ask Jesus any more questions. So Jesus turns to teach his disciples and followers. This is the last time He would teach in the Temple. We read from Luke that at the end of this teaching, He noticed the widow woman who had cast her last two mites into the treasury. The rich people were all too happy to donate gold and silver for the adornment of the Temple. But did anyone care for this poor woman who was about to go home and starve. This was a glaring display of religious hypocrisy. Jesus left in disgust and went out to the Mount of Olives, never to step foot in the Temple again. To those disciples who were amazed at the beauty of the Temple, Jesus told them that not one stone of this will be left upon another.
The Temple was the pride of Judaism, although the massive renovation of it which was still underway was financed by someone who wasn’t a Jew at all. The Jews wanted the Temple to be the biggest and shiniest in the world. The Temple was the world of the Sadducees. The Pharisees were much less attached to the Temple. They saw through the hypocrisy of it. Of course, they were blind to their own hypocrisy. This is something which plagues us as well. Their life was centered around the synagogues in the local villages throughout Palestine and throughout the Roman Empire. It was because of the looser attachment to the Temple cult that the Pharisees survived the destruction of the Temple. They centered their lives around the study of the Torah. They wanted to live by it. They detested idolatry and Pagan culture. They found keeping the literal Torah too difficult, so they built up a supplementary and in many cases substitutionary teaching and tradition.
In this passage, Jesus does not attack their beliefs as much as their practice of religion. There was much in the Pharisee’s teaching which was similar to what Jesus Himself taught. This is why Jesus tells the Jews to do as they commanded in the synagogues. They sat in the Moses seat there as the place where the Rabbi’s taught the people. Inasmuch as they were faithful in proclaiming the Scripture, they were to be obeyed. What Jesus condemns in the Pharisees is their attitude. It is interesting that much of the Gospel of Matthew centers in on Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Issues He dealt with there pops up again throughout the gospel. Jesus taught in Matthew six about the hypocrisy of public display of religion for the purpose of been seen and applauded by men. The Pharisees’ teaching centered around three pillars, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. There Jesus accused the Pharisees of hypocrisy. They did not practice their religion to glorify God, but rather to be glorified by men. This is nothing else but idolatry.
So Jesus again attacks show religion again here in the 23rd Chapter of Matthew. The Pharisees prided themselves in enlightening the people. There is nothing wrong of that in itself. Any minister of the Gospel should be diligent to teach the Word of God to the people. We should teach the people how to pray and do charity for others in need. It is a good thing to get as much education as possible. This would include getting advanced degrees. We should be good examples in our public conduct. None of this is blameworthy at all.
Where things become blameworthy is when we do these things to draw attention on ourselves. It is hypocritical to command the people to do what we are not doing ourselves. The Pharisees placed many burdensome regulations upon the congregations that they were unwilling to practice themselves. We see hypocrisy like this in the world every day. In our country, the elite place burdensome regulations and laws upon the common people from which they exempt themselves. There is a law for the elite and a law for the commoners. How much people despise hypocrisy! They cannot stomach a politician going to a beauty parlor without a mask during Covid, yet they will arrest commoners and fine them for doing the same thing. This gives the country a black eye. How much worse is it when God is blasphemed by religious leaders in the church?
The Pharisees set themselves off from the congregation by the way they dressed. Their outer garments had fringes upon them. They made theirs bigger. It was believed that when the Messiah came, people would be healed by touching these tassels on the hem of the garment. By making them larger, it would make it easier for them to be touched, just in case it turned out that that individual would become the Messiah. They liked being called by the respectful term “Rabbi” or even “my father.” We suffer the same thing today when our ministers are addressed by the titles “reverend,” “Doctor.” or “Father.” We wear our preaching robes and stoles as well. How many of has fallen from pride? How many well-intentioned laypersons have set up their minister by using such titles to address them? As both a “reverend” and a “doctor”, I am including myself in this challenge. How do we do our proper duty as people called by God to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ without becoming ensnared in the process?
Should we avoid using titles to address our ministers then? I think the answer is “yes” if it is likely to become a snare to the minister. I do thing that “father” is always appropriate because only God is “Father.” However, we must realize that Scripture teaches us to respect and honor our ministers, especially those who labor in the Word. Those who occupy the preacher’s chair next to the pulpit are there to proclaim God’s Word. Paul reminds the Philippians that some have hypocritically proclaimed Christ, however, he could still rejoice that Christ was being preached. That is far better than the seat of Caiaphas. What needs to be respected is that God’s word is being proclaimed to the people, If the minister cannot do even that, he needs to be fired, no matter how humble or sincere he might seem to be.
I think the best guardian here is to be aware of the dangers of falling into pride. Paul even says that he had to lay blows upon himself. Paul was a very educated and talented man before He was miraculously saved. He knew the Scriptures and their promises better than anyone. Yet, He had to go to the backside of the desert for three years and learn about Jesus. The disciples who had far less formal education spent three years learning about Jesus. So Paul was not given advanced placement based upon his superior intellect. He was also given a thorn in the flesh to keep him from thinking too highly of himself. His appearance mand matter of speech was not all that great. Apollos could speak eloquently. This was not a snare to him. But Paul had been a Pharisee. He had been deeply infected with pride. So God used Paul’s gifts while at the same time keeping him in check. Thankfully, God cares for us and deals with out shortcomings. Apart from this, we would all fall into the trappings of hypocrisy. This is true for all Christians, not just the ministers.
Whatever gifts God has given to us are just that, gifts. It is the giver of the gift, which is to be glorified, which is God. If we teach well, we are only teaching what Rabbi Jesus taught us. If we are teaching anything other that what Jesus, our great teacher and example taught, we need to be challenged to repent, and if uncorrected, fired. We as a church need to work together to see that it is Jesus who has the name above every name. This is His divine right. If we keep this in mind, then we can thank God who has gifted people in the congregation in different ways to minister to us. And we can also stand in humble amazement that God has used us jars of clay in his work rather than assigning angels. May we always stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene who has redeemed us by His blood. Then we can have sincere faith without hypocrisy.
