Beware of Pharisees
A practical Christian study of “Beware of Pharisees,” with clear application for faith, relationships, and everyday life.
Season 6, Episode 26 · Beware of Pharisees
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The story behind the idea
Overwhelmingly, he warns against all kinds of other inappropriate things that are associated with them as they teach and seek to live the law. Under the new covenant in Christ, you and I, we want to love and revere and honor God, and we want to revere and respect and obey the teachings of Jesus and his apostles. In terms of evangelism, that's the best way to draw people to the kingdom by living and loving and sharing the word. However, Jesus goes to great extent, and Matthew and the Holy Spirit to great extent in these letters to talk about wrongful thinking among these religious leaders.
What stands out
If it's always leaning towards an exclusivity that shows less mercy, then maybe I'm more like these guys than I thought. By the way, a great solution for this, and Jesus teaches it so often, is to think about the extent of God's patience and mercy that He has for you. Whenever God is looking at the law and measuring it against me and deciding what to do, I sure hope and pray and believe that he is always looking to extend mercy whenever possible, and I should do the same. From there, let me run you through a few stories.
Why it matters
It is something that you hope that others in your life will not do, and in that way you need to lead by example. It's also in this story that we start to see how often they took their interpretation of the law and that became the law to them. Based on their time and their thinking and their groups of guys, they had decided that picking random grain heads on the Sabbath violated the law of God.
A faithful way forward
Throughout all of these stories, they just kept missing that Jesus is God's authority over all. That if they would center everything that they feel and think, internal things, and also do with their lives and bodies, if they would center all of that on Christ, many of the laws they were keeping, they would continue to keep. They would do so with hearts of mercy and patience, and at the same time letting go of rules that just matter to them, but are not the clearly taught will of their creator.
Put it into practice
Instead of being legalistic, focused on the externals and missing the spirit of it, let's be led by a God like heart. God does great things because he loves truth and he loves people and he is trustworthy.
Take the idea with you.
- 01What idea from this study most needs my attention right now?
- 02Where does this challenge the way I am currently thinking or living?
- 03What is one faithful step I can take this week?
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