Hey everybody! Thank you for joining me in daily Bible reading as we seek to glorify Jesus, know Him more, and interpret the truth of His Word.
If this is your first time going through the Bible, I am incredibly excited to have you here. If this is your 5000th time, I am humbled that you are here and hope you grow in your relationship with Jesus along with me. May we all seek to know Him more and apply what we learn to further our mission of spreading the gospel. If you missed a day and want to catch up, visit the archives page HERE! But there is no shame if you start today! Day 257, Matthew 23:16-19 — The Eight Woes Matthew 23:16-19 (NASB1995) “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.’ 17 You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? 18 And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.’ 19 You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering?” Context Matthew has been recording Jesus’ debate with the religious leaders since arriving in Jerusalem, which roused them into questioning His authority. Following a lengthy debate with them about taxes, marriage, and other topics, Jesus turns to His disciples to condemn the religious leaders for their hypocrisy and unbelief. Review Yesterday, we started reading Jesus’ woes against the Pharisees. In short, a ‘woe’, or ouaí in Greek, is a term used ‘to pity’ or ‘proclaim doom on.’ Jesus is proclaiming ‘woes’ or ‘pity’ or ‘doom’ upon the religious leaders for several reasons: for being stumbling blocks to the lost sheep of Israel (v. 13), devourers of widows (v. 14), and steering converted Gentiles away from God’s law into their more restrictive version of the law (v. 15). In each woe, Jesus calls them hypocrites, revealing they are pretenders of the faith. They claim to be righteous in God’s sight and invoke an image of holiness yet are far from God and remain condemned for their blatant hypocrisy. These stern words echo the many Old Testament prophets who proclaimed judgment against Israel before Christ. The religious leaders would have fully understood the intense meaning behind Jesus’ judgmental language toward them. Instead of shepherding the people of Israel with grace, kindness, and mercy in obedience as God intended, they judged, intimidated, stole, and led astray the people of Israel, resulting in their condemnation. Discussion Today, we continue reading Jesus’ woes against the Pharisees. In His next woe, Jesus says, “16 Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.’” Jesus first highlights the religious leaders’ blindness as they lead themselves and those they teach down the wide road to destruction. He made a similar judgment against them in Matthew 15:14 about the Pharisees blindly leading others astray. The language of blindness and leaders guiding others astray with falsehood are standard Old Testament judgments (Is. 3:12-15; 9:16). However, Jesus mentions the religious leaders’ blindness in this verse in the context of making oaths. Swearing oaths or making promises were extremely common in ancient times, as many would use them as insurance regarding keeping one’s word.[1] Since God forbid making oaths in His name, they would swear on various objects. These objects could be anything, but there were levels of power or sacredness to each. For example, if the item was more sacred, then the oath was more reliable because it carried more weight and led to a more severe punishment if broken. Thus, the people swore oaths on objects with varying levels of sacredness, depending on the weight of the promise.[2] In this woe, Jesus is specifically condemning the Pharisees for being blind guides regarding the objects they swear on. Because they were crafty, deceiving, and self-centered, the Pharisees would make oaths on various objects that provided them loopholes to get out of them. They essentially made oaths knowing they would not keep them. Conversely, if a person made an oath to them, the Pharisees would make sure the promise was kept by forcing the person to do so, or else they would face punishment. Notably, it is important to recognize that violating an oath is a sin, according to the law (Lev. 19:12; Num. 30:2; Deut. 23:21-23). God did not forbid oaths in the Old Testament, but forbid them in his name and forbid violating them. However, Jesus commands people should make no oaths at all in His Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:34 says, “But I say to you, make no oath at all. In this passage, Jesus condemns the Pharisees for saying an oath to the temple was meaningless and unbinding while making an oath by gold bound a person to keep it. Jesus then rebukes them and asks a rhetorical question. He says, “17 You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold?” This question confronts the religious leaders’ contradiction about the value of gold and the weight of their oaths. Does the gold carry more weight simply because it is gold? Or does the gold carry more weight because it is from the temple? If the latter is true, then the temple should be of more value, right? How can an oath on the temple be less valuable than gold if the gold comes from the temple? It makes little sense, proving that the Pharisees were wrongly attributing value to God’s temple while also condemning themselves by repudiating their word. Jesus then adds, “18 And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.’ 19 You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering?” This latter statement echoes the previous one in vs. 16-17 that we just discussed. In short, Jesus is making the same judgment against the religious leaders about wrongly valuing certain objects over others and also retracting their oaths. Matthew views both ‘the gold of the sanctuary’ in v. 16 and ‘the gift on the altar’ in v. 18 selfsame since both have to do with gifts dedicated to the temple.[3] We will continue Jesus’ woes tomorrow. Application This passage seems inapplicable, but there are some important principles we can take away. While the Pharisees did not swear on God’s name, they created loopholes and ways around this sin that still led to disobedience. How often do we do the same? How often do we twist the commands of God to make ourselves feel better about certain sins? Drunkenness is a sin? Well, getting tipsy should be fine then. How can that hurt anybody? The acts of fornication are a sin. But what if I just watch it instead? Does that really separate me from God? I promised my friends I would do something but do not feel like it anymore, so I will tell them I got sick. That should be fine. Is it really lying? Is it really breaking my word? There are many other examples of sins that we alter or twist. Certainly, we all have found loopholes in God’s commands to make ourselves feel better about disobeying Him. I have done this in the past and occasionally catch myself to this day. However, sin is sin. Continued disobedience to God’s word keeps us in bondage and eats away at our convictions. It is important to heed our convictions and repent when we find ourselves in sin or making excuses for them. We must repent and live with integrity. While it is easy to make plans or say things nonchalantly without the intention of following through, this is something the LORD rebukes. We must weigh our words and actions and be intentional about obeying God’s word and not lying. A person who cannot fulfill their words with actions is unstable and lacks integrity. Let’s honor the LORD, our time, and other people by following through with our plans and promises. Let’s have integrity, leading to trust with others that is rooted in Christ. Let’s repent of our sins and stop making excuses for them. A genuinely born-again follower of Christ will not stay the same. May we praise, worship, honor, and glorify Jesus every day in all that we do while continually pursuing righteousness, holiness, and forgiveness as He forgave us. Looking Ahead Thank you for joining today’s daily Bible reading! Next, we read Matthew 23:20-22. I hope you join me! I have made commenting available, so please feel free to discuss the reading and ask questions. If you do not want to discuss publicly, you can reach out to me privately. We are on this journey together. References [1] Doug O’Donnell, “New International Greek Testament Commentary.” [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid.
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