Life of Christ 110
Note: This is the first of an eight part mini-series on the errors of the Pharisees.
Jesus and His Apostles
are on a preaching trip through Judea in the months immediately prior to His
crucifixion. Along the way, in some village, He was invited to eat at a local
Pharisee's house. This sounds strange, but hospitality was ingrained in their culture,
and from the Pharisee's perspective it would put Jesus' on his turf, and give
him an opportunity to berate and/or convince Jesus of the error of His ways. In
so doing, said Pharisee got a whole lot more than what he bargained for on this
occasion.
Woes of the Pharisees by James Tissout, 1886 |
For years now the
Pharisees have been, not only antagonistic to Jesus personally, but taking the
Jewish people that He loved so much in the completely wrong direction,
religiously. Their desire to erect an extra-biblical fence around the garden of
the Torah had resulted in a religion that was full of an astounding number of
rules, and one that tore the heart out of the people's obedience to the Lord.
On this occasion, that
of a meal, it is helpful to see some of the Pharisees' concept of approach. The
psalmist said, 'The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof' (Psalm 24.1).
Thus, if you ate without thanking the Lord for the food you were stealing. So
far so good, but they wanted to ascertain if a separate blessing was needed
over each item, or just the principle item? If it is just the principle item
how do you determine that? Doesn't that depend on the dish and the ingredients
in the dish? And since we now have classes of items in which we have ranked, in
order of importance (so we can know when to bless which one) each ingredient we
also now have an opportunity for tremendous theological argument. Which blessing
should be used for which ingredient when?
The caper plant |
This sounds silly to us, but to the rabbis of Jesus'
day this was prime debating territory. For instance, the schools of Hillel and
Shammai had a terrific row about whether the blessing should be said over the
berries or the leaves of the caper plant. And this was just about the blessing
before the meal! There were similar kinds of pharisaic theological arguments
over who should sit where, and who ought to wash, in what way, in what order,
and at what times. It was all a useless pre-occupation with completely
superfluous details, and it was further set within the context of a religious
group that totally missed the main points of the Law.
The Pharisees had chosen to spend an exhaustive amount
of time and energy debating and establishing arcane rules for items of minute
importance, and had absolutely neglected the matters of primary importance in
the Scripture. On this day, in that Judean Pharisees' home, Jesus has had
enough. He is driven to a sudden, justifiable, righteous anger at their whole
religious system.
Over the next seven blog posts I am going to walk you
through this diatribe against the Pharisees, and reveal seven specific areas in
which He reproves these Pharisees and lawyers. I invite you along for the
journey. It might not be fun, but it will certainly be educational.
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