SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/30/2020 9:50 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The
Pharisees Partial and Redefined Righteousness
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 5:20
Message of the verse: “20 "For I say to you that unless your righteousness
surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the
kingdom of heaven.”
Partial
Righteousness: I mentioned in our last
SD that we would try to get through two sub-sections which continue to describe
the “false” righteousness of the Scribes and the Pharisees, which is woefully
incomplete. Once again we will go to the
23rd chapter of Matthew and verse 23 to look further into this topic
as Jesus explains “"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you
tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and
faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without
neglecting the others.” As we look at
this verse we can see that what they were practicing was things on the outside,
as they were meticulous in tithing the smallest plants and seeds from their
garden, but that was not really specifically commanded in the law as once again
we see them making up things to do what they thought would bring true
righteousness to them. Next we see that
they had total disregard for showing justice and mercy, something we looked on
the 5th and 6th of May when we looked at the Beatitude
from Matthew 5:7, which is about the merciful.
14 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’
houses, and for a pretense
make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation”
Matthew 23:14.
John
MacArthur writes “To the extent this second evil was caused by the first. They disregarded such things as justice,
mercy, and faithfulness because those things are essentially the reflections of
a transformed heart. It is impossible to
be merciful, just, and faithful without a divinely wrought change. No external formality can produce that.
“Quoting
God’s scathing words to their forefathers , Jesus told them ‘7 ’BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS
DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’ 8 "Neglecting the commandment of God, you
hold to the tradition of men.’ Yet they
considered themselves to be Israel’s religious elite and the objects of God’s
special affection.”
Redefined: What the Scribes and Pharisees were in their
day is similar to what liberal theologians of our own day do. Both modern day “Pharisees” and the Pharisees
of Jesus day took biblical terms and redefined them to suit their own human
perspectives and their own philosophy.
How did they do this? Well they
reworked biblical teachings, commands, and standards to produce variations in
keeping with their own desires and their own capabilities. What can we notice from this? Well I think we can notice that Satan never
stops using things that work for him.
The
following is an example of what they do:
They interpreted this verse in a different way to what it says: “’For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate
yourselves therefore, and
be holy, for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with
any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth” (Lev. 11:44). We are only interested in the highlighted
portion of this verse. They interpreted
not as a call to pure attitude of heart, but as a requirement to perform
certain rituals. Why would they do
this? Well they knew that they could not
be holy in the same way that God was holy, and really they had no desire to do
so, so they simply changed the meaning of holiness.
God
made us to worship and if we don’t worship God in the way that He sets forward
in His Word, they we will worship falsely like the liberal theologians do
today, and like the Scribes and Pharisees did in Jesus’ day.
We
have one more short sub-section to look at and Lord willing we will do that in
our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I can only please God by doing things that He
desires me to do through the power of His Holy Spirit, and not through my own
strength.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Do things that please the Lord, for after all
He did it all for me.
7/30/2020 10:23 AM
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