SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/14/2020
10:06 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The
Sadducees”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 3:7a
Message of the
verse: “But when he say many of the
Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism,”
The Pharisees believed in prophecy, angels, and the
entire Old Testament, while the Sadducees did not believe in angels, or
prophecy, or life after death, and only looked at the first five books of Moses
for the most part. Now as far as the
origin of their name that is uncertain, however many modern scholars believe that
their name derived from Zadok which is seen as Sadok in the Scriptures from the
Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. In 2 Samuel 8:17 we read “17 Zadok the son of Ahitub and Ahimelech the son of
Abiathar were priests, and Seraiah was secretary.” Zadok was a priest under David and he was the
chief priest under Solomon as seen in 1 Kings 1:32). Again this is not known for sure as to
whether or not this was where the Sadducees got their name. Like the Pharisees this sect came about during
the interestamental time period, the time of 400 years when there was nothing
that came to Israel in the form of prophets or prophecies. Both the Pharisees and the Sadducees had the
wrong thinking when it came from looking at the Scriptures. I was listening to a sermon by John MacArthur
from this section and learned that it was the Sadducees who were in charge of
the priesthood during the time when Jesus was teaching and preaching as the
high priest was a Sadducee. They were the
ones who were in charge of having Jesus crucified. You probably heard the story that the
Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead and so that made them
sad you see.
So if the Pharisees did believe in
the resurrection of the dead in order to enter into heaven they put all their
efforts in living a righteous life in order to get to heaven. On the other hand because the Sadducees did
not believe in life after death they tried to get as much money and things in
this life, and one of the things that they were in charge of during Jesus’
ministry was the temple, and the made a business out of it to make money for
themselves. Jesus was not happy about
this and so he cleansed the temple on two occasions, certainly making an enemy
of the Sadducees.
We know the story of how they ran
the temple as they had money changers used when the Jews from other countries
came into Jerusalem with their own currency and then getting ripped off when
they exchanged their money. After that
they had to buy animals to be sacrificed which they got ripped off again. If they brought their own animals for
sacrifice the Sadducees would find fault with them saying they were not good
enough to be sacrificed and so they would have to buy others from them. I suppose that the Sadducees would then sell
the “unclean” ones to others as the miracle happened that they were now “clean.”
Throughout church history we have
had different types of people that acted like the Pharisees and the
Sadducees. A careful study of the 2nd
and 3rd chapters of Revelation will give you what the Lord said to
the seven churches of the time period of the end of the first century and one
can see similar people acting like these two sects.
John MacArthur writes “It is
probably because of that deeper spiritual commonness that Matthew speaks of
them as one group, emphasized by the use of a single definite article (‘the’)
rather than two (‘the Pharisees and the Sadducees’). It is clear from John’s response to them that
he considered their basis problem and need to be exactly the same.”
MacArthur goes on to talk more about
these two group as one: “This group was
coming for baptism, the Greek preposition epi
(‘for’) being used in a construction that clearly indicates purpose. In light of John’s unorthodox dress and style
and his prophetic and authoritative exhortations, it is hard to imagine why the
self-righteous and proud Pharisees and Sadducees would ask to be baptized by
him.” With that said why would one think
that this group would come for baptism of repentance by John? As mentioned John’s baptism was for
repentance, to get people right with the Lord as the King was about to make His
scene soon and there was a need for repentance. Remember that there was only one reason, (up
until this time) when be baptized and that was when a proselyte (a gentile)
desired to be involved in the Jewish faith.
It seems ironic to me that this group would want to be baptized. Perhaps they were covering all the bases as “all
Jerusalem” was coming to see John.
Lord willing, in our next SD we will
look at the “confrontation” that came about as this group wants to be baptized
by John.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Once again
it is certainly not my desire to act like either a Pharisee or a Sadducee. Jesus called them hypocrites and that is
certainly something that I would want to be called for my faith or live like.
My Steps of Faith for Today: It is my
desire to continue to be joyful as I study the Word of God and also to be
humble. It is my desire to work on my
Sunday school lesson for this up-coming Sunday.
1/14/2020 10:44
AM
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