Victimized

Matthew 23:13-15

¹³“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

[¹⁴Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Therefore you will be punished more severely.]

¹⁵Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

It is always my intention to write something uplifting, instructional, and encouraging. Some days that is really difficult. Like today. We now dive into what has been titled “The Seven Woes” by those who compiled the Scriptures. Jesus speaks specifically about the treacheries of the Pharisees in vividly colorful terms. His warnings are to the point and prickly. Had I been standing near a Pharisee when these words were first spoken, I may have stepped back a little bit.

The warnings to and about the Pharisees are fairly clear and straightforward. As I read these verses today, looking for that encouraging thought, it struck me that Jesus is deeply concerned about those who would become the victims of this wrong teaching. Even in the midst of castigating these men His heart is showing. He wants only the best for His people and these Pharisees aren’t it. Jesus cares about the people so much that it hurts Him to see these men teaching anything that doesn’t lift the people up and draw them closer to God. The victimization of others is always wrong and apparently God will mete out a very specific punishment for those who do so.

On a side note – verse 14 is in brackets for a reason. It does not appear in some of the early manuscripts of this passage. But, in the same passage recorded in Mark and Luke, these words do appear so some have added them here as well. Just a bit of information – see – instructional. :)