Matthew 23: "Woe to You..."

Do you think Jesus piles on too harshly here?  You hear his righteous anger expressed at hypocrisy.  Jesus sermon recorded here in Matthew 23, though, is not merely an angry tirade.  His great fury is mixed with deep sorrow.  The Greek word for “woe” that Jesus uses suggests “horror” and “pain” were a part of these judgments on the Pharisees and teachers of the law.  “The merciful heart of the Messiah is broken by his people’s callous rejection of the gospel” (The Peoples’ Bible: Matthew, NPH).  The Pharisees and teachers of the law were Israel’s religious leaders.  I find it interesting that Jesus still tells his disciples here to “obey them and do everything they tell you to do” (v3).  In other words, Jesus’ disciples were to follow their leadership in so far as it was truthful to God and his commands.  On the other hand, they were not to do as the Pharisees and teachers were doing, as is described by these seven woes.  The privileges of leadership among God’s people carries with it heavy responsibility.  In the New Testament James writes that those who lead and teach God’s people will be judged more strictly (James 3:1).  Jesus denounces the Pharisees especially because they were God’s teachers who were actually leading others away from God.

The spirit of Pharisaism is not dead.  Jesus’ words here apply to his church today as much as they did when he directly preached them to the Pharisees in his day.  A Latin phrase that is used to describe Christians is, “simul justus et peccator.”  It means, “At the same time saint and sinner.”  Each of us, then, must heed of Jesus’ words of woe because of the sinful enticement of our inner-Pharisee attitude (our sinful nature that leads us to say, “I can do/earn my salvation, if only a little.”).  We must heed his woes if we, then, are going to escape the death trap of false teachers and churches too. 

I conclude this entry with a lengthy quote from the People’s Bible because I thought it was such a great explanation for me (and for you):

We live in an age that regards all negative language as bad.  (But) eight of the Ten Commandments are negative, and each of the seven woes in this sermon is negative, because disobedience is humanity’s instinctive reaction to any word of God.  We need to hear these divine prohibitions.  Yet, the genius of Martin Luther’s explanations of the Ten Commandments in his Small Catechism is that he brings out a positive side to each negative command.  Likewise, each of the woes in this sermon can be turned around to show us those positive acts and attitudes that Jesus delights to bless.  (The People’s Bible: Matthew, NPH, 1997).   

Perhaps it is something you and I do for ourselves.