DENUNCIATION OF THE
SCRIBES AND PHARISEES
3RD
Wednesday of Lent
Read Matthew 23:1-36
Why does Jesus denounce the scribes and Pharisees as sinful?
How are you like the Pharisees? How are you different?
Notes on the text:
It is believed that this passage not only expresses the
discord between Jesus and the Pharisees but also between Matthew’s Jewish-Christian
community and the synagogues. Matthew
was writing around 80-85 CE. Up to this
time, most Christians had been Jewish converts who continued to worship in their
synagogues on the Jewish Sabbath and who celebrated the Eucharist in a house
church on Sunday. It was in the late
first century that Judaism and Christianity went their separate ways, but not
before there was much tension between the two communities.
Verse 5: Phylacteries and tassels were worn during
prayer.
Verses 8-10 are not to be taken literally. Rather, they are part of the exhortation to
live humbly found in verses 11-12.
Verse 9: In the Greco-Roman world the Father (or patriarch)
of a family had absolute say over every part of every family member’s life,
including the power to decide matters of life and death. “You have but one Father in heaven” means
only God should have that kind of power.
Woes, in biblical terms, are a series of condemnations and
punishments for sin. There are 7 woes in
this passage. 7 was a symbolic number in
the ancient world signifying completeness.
The 7 woes directed against the scribes and Pharisees can be interpreted
as the writer believing them to have been utterly or completely sinful.
Verse 23: Mosaic Law
required a tithing of all produce. Here
it is carried to the extreme by tithing herbs that would have been cultivated
in small quantities or gathered from the wild.
It shows their attention to minor matters while they neglect more
important matters.
The last woe proclaims that by their actions, the scribes
and Pharisees have placed themselves in the direct line of those who killed the
prophets and, therefore, rejected God’s teaching.
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