The Widows Mite.

Reading: Mark 12:38-44.

This chapter closes with two warnings from the Lord:

• A warning against the pride of the teachers of the law or Scribes (Mark 12:38-40)

• And a warning against the pride of the rich (vv. 41-44).

Quote C.S. Lewis:

“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and of course, as long as you’re looking down, you can’t see something that’s above you”.

• The teachers of the law or Scribes, whichever name you prefer to call them,

• Where a very, very proud religious group of people.

ill:

Raynald III was a fourteenth-century duke of what is now Belgium.

• He was grossly overweight and called Crassus, the Latin for fat.

• One day in battle, Edward, his younger brother, Captured him and put him in the Nieuwkerk castle.

• The room was not a cell but a room with a normal door and windows.

• None of them was locked. But Raynald was too fat to get through the door.

• Knowing his weakness, each day his brother sent Raynald;

• A variety of delicious and fattening foods.

• Instead of dieting so he could get out, he got fatter and fatter.

• He was a prisoner of his own appetite.

The teachers of the law were prisoners of there own appetite ‘Pride’:

• Quote: “There is no room for God in him who is full of himself”

• They were always looking down on things and people; and of course,

• As long as they were looking down, they had lost the reality of the God above.

Two warnings:

• A warning against the pride of the teachers of the law (Mark 12:38-40)

• And a warning against the pride of the rich (vv. 41-44).

Ill:

Three small boys were bragging about their dads:

• The first boy said, "All my dad has to do is write a few short lines on paper, calls it a poem, sends it away, and gets ten pounds for it."

• The second boy said, "All my dad has to do is make dots on paper, calls it a song, sends it away, and gets twenty-five pounds for it."

• "That's nothing," declared the third boy. "My father the minister, all he does is say a few words, i.e. pray, and it takes four men to bring in all the money!"

Quote:

“You can blot out the sun if you hold a coin close to your enough to your eye”.

(spiritual parallel there as well).

So this chapter closes with two warnings from the Lord:

• A warning against the pride of the teachers of the law (Mark 12:38-40)

• And against the pride of the rich (vv. 41-44).

The teachers of the Law or scribes (word is interchangeable):

• Were experts in the religious law.

• They were in the time of Jesus the public teachers of the people.

They originated the synagogue services:

• They claimed their oral traditions (i.e. legal decisions),

• To be more important than the written law (5 books of Moses)

• They were also lawyers for the Sanhedrin, hence the name; ‘the teachers of the law’.

• Which was the highest Jewish religious Council which met in Jerusalem.

• They were distinct from,

• Yet mostly belonged to the Pharisee’s party,

(1). A warning against pride (Mark 12:38-40)

Pride:

• Is an overemphasis on yourself or your position or your achievements.

• A feeling of superiority.

“As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, 39and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 40They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.”

In these verses 38-40:

• Jesus makes a series of charges against the teachers of the teachers of the law or Scribes,

• Six ways in which they abused their position.

Ill:

Mask:

• Hides the real you and presents a false image,

• These teachers of the law were pretending to be spiritual.

• They were pretending to be representatives of godliness,

• When in fact they were actors, everything was an outward show.

Ill:

Whitewashed tombs (Matthew 23 verse 27).

• They were pure and white on the outside,

• But full of corruption, dead men’s bones on the inside.

Six ways in which they were guilty of pride & hypocrisy:

(a). Clothing.

Ill:

On a week day, if you saw Penny & myself down town:

• Penny was wearing an evening dress and I wore a tuxedo.

• You would know instantly, that we were not going to work.

• Our clothing would be a giveaway.

The teachers of the law wore: