Mat 23:15 “ Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye
compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him
twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.”
Can I take the time to translate that into today’s language? “Your are
going to have problems, and I feel sorry for you, religious teachers, for you
travel all over the place trying to make a convert, and when you do, you make
him/her twice the child of hell that you are by putting them in total religious
bondage.” That in essence is what Jesus was saying to the scribes and
Pharisees. He started out in the passage to say that the scribes and Pharisees
sat in Moses seat. That meant that they were speaking on behalf of God, but
they were in great error.
I would warn that many religious leaders today in evangelical Christianity
should take the time to read Matthew chapter 23 often. To answer the question
of this post, the answer is that the only people… can I repeat that? ….THE ONLY
PEOPLE, that Jesus criticized was religious leaders. Think about that; let that
soak in. If you listen to most evangelical Christians today you would think
that he was critical of fornicators and drunks. That was not Jesus priority.
Why was that? Could it be that He knew that they were already totally alienated
from God because of the fall, and that they needed to know that God was indeed
a loving Father in heaven that had planned to redeem them from before the
foundation of the world.
His concern was for all those who were being mistreated by religious
leaders. He was upset with the greedy money changers that were ripping the
people off by making them exchange their money for temple money. They traveled
many miles to sacrifice and they could only sacrifice what was offered by the
money changers, and the money changers charged exorbitant usury to sell the
animals.
All I can say is James warned about not being many teachers. He said that
those who teach others, and set themselves up as religious leaders have a
greater responsibility. He told his disciples that the Gentile leader’s lord
over the people, and it should not be so with a disciple/apostle of Christ.
There is so much ink in the gospels that religious leaders should be aware of
because they would find that much of what they do does not square with the
story of redemption at all. Again, to really understand the scripture, one must
be very careful that they understand what part of the timeline is involved, and
who a message was being spoke to. Most of the gospels were written about events
under the Old Covenant before the cross. The fact is that the religious leaders
under the old covenant were not to be emulated. Yet today so many religious
leaders pattern themselves too closely to the old covenant leaders. Now is the
time to re-examine our hermeneutic and see the transition that takes place
within the pages of the New Testament. If we allow the Holy Spirit to be the
guide we will arrive at very different conclusions.
The answer to the above question is that the only criticism that Jesus leveled was to religious leaders... pray and meditate on that!
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