SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/26/2023 8:39 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “False Leaders Lack Authority”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 23:2b
Message of the verse: “[they] have seated themselves in the chair of Moses;”
Jesus is saying here that these false leaders do not
have the authority that they think they have, for He his saying that they seated
themselves. “They were not appointed by
God to sit in the chair of Moses. They
had simply arrogated to themselves that position of authority, which was
therefore counterfeit.
John MacArthur writes “Chair if from kathedra, the Greek term for which we get cathedral, which originally referred to a place, or seat, of
ecclesiastical authority. The same idea
is found today in such expressions as ‘chair of philosophy’ or ‘chair of
history,’ which refer to the most esteemed professorships in a college or
university. When the pope of the Roman
Catholic church speaks of his full ecclesiastical authority, he is said to be
speaking ex cathedra.”
It is true that for Jews, Moses was the supreme law
giver, the supreme spokesman for God.
With that said to sit in the chair of Moses was practically the same as to
being
God’s authoritative spokesman. They were
claiming that many of the scribes and Pharisees made it for themselves. Jesus is saying this was all made up by them,
and there was actually no physical chair of Moses at all.
Now it was for that reason that they were envious of
Jesus and so determined to undermine Him.
If one thinks about this, that is that God had determined in eternity
past to have His Son come to earth in order to die for the sins of the people
then this was the way that this was going to happen, that is having the Jewish
leaders so envious of Him that they had to get Him out of the way, and so they
determined to kill Him. With that said
as we look at the story of how Jesus was crucified we know that it was Jesus
who was in charge of it happening, and this was because it was the Father’s
will, and He came to earth to do the Father’s will.
John MacArthur writes about how the Jewish leaders were
envious of Jesus, and says “They were infuriated because the people discerned
that Jesus taught with an authority that seemed genuine (Matt. 7:29). Even to the uneducated masses, something
about the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees did not ring true, whereas
Jesus’ teaching did. Jesus was therefore
a threat to those leaders and to their heretofore unchallenged religious
authority.”
It was in Jeremiah’s day that he also was confronted by
false prophets, prophets the Lord repeatedly said were not sent by Him and were
not preaching His word. “Then the LORD said to me, "The prophets are
prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them
nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination,
futility and the deception of their own minds.” When one looks at the beginning of Jeremiah’s
book you will find out that the Lord had told him right from the beginning that
the people would not listen to him, and this was so upsetting to Jeremiah that
he is known as the crying prophet.
In our next SD I want to begin it by talking about Isaiah’s
words that he spoke.
9/26/2023 9:10 AM
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