Religious Leaders (3) Stephen and Paul

Stephen

Stephen criticised the Jewish leaders for refusing to obey God after he had rescued them. He accused his listeners of the same sin (Acts 7).

Paul

Before his conversion, the main thing that Paul relied on for being right with God was his birth as an Israelite from the tribe of Benjamin. His circumcision on the eighth day confirmed that he belonged to the people of God.

I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness in the law, becoming blameless (Phil 3:4-6).

His confidence came from his birth as a Hebrew.

In regard to the law, he was a Pharisee with a zeal for keeping the law, albeit in a selective way. He does not claim to be perfectly righteous. Rather, he claims to be becoming blameless. He was working on keeping the law, but had not fully achieved this goal. However, not being perfectly blameless, did not keep him from the blessings promised by the covenant with Moses.

The full series is at Judaism and the Gospel.

Religious Leaders (2) Jesus' Woes

Jesus did not condemn the Pharisees for trying to earn righteousness by keeping the law. He was concerned that they were leading the children of Israel astray by their teaching, and particularly by the way that they lived.

Jesus criticised the Pharisees and the teachers of the law for the following failures. (The codes refer to the number of the woe in either Matthew or Luke).

• Ordinary sins that are common to all people.

  • Pride – wanting the best seats and places of privilege (M0, L2)

  • Rejecting God’s prophets (L5, M7)

  • Hypocrisy – good on the outside but rotten inside (L4, M5 ,M6).

  • Greed (L1, M5).

• Religious sins

• Deceiving people with incorrect interpretations of the law (M2).

• Nitpicking rules (L3, L5).

• Failure to apply the Torah, and especially the Instructions for Economic Life.

• Placing a burden on the poor by making them pay the cost of Herod’s temple. Wealth was flowing from the people to the temple and the people employed there. (M0, L5).

• Preventing people from entering the Kingdom. The Instructions for Economic Life specified in the Torah could be applied in any community, despite the Romans. It was not necessary to wait for the coming of the Messiah. The teachers of the law had ignored the Instructions for Economic Life, so they poor suffered. The people of Israel could have been obeying God and experiencing the life of the Kingdom, but the teachers of the law had shut them out of that option.

• Failure to provide justice and mercy. This is the heart of the Instructions for Economic Life. The application of the justice of the Torah would have eliminated much of the poverty and suffering in Israel. Giving away unrighteous wealth would have bought great blessing. Applying the land laws would have been tough for the Sadducees would have provided economic sustenance for many people (L1, L2). More in God's Economy.

Religious Leaders (1)

Most Christians assume that the religious leaders that Jesus encountered were practising a works-based religion. They were trying to satisfy God’s righteous standards by obeying the law. This view is misleading. The law is not a tool for proving righteousness. God had different purposes for giving the law.

Jesus actually criticised the religious leaders for a number of different reasons. We need to understand them, because we are in danger of falling into the same mistakes.

A key problem that Jesus challenged was that the religious leaders had made the law into a burden. God had given the law to bless his people His main purpose was to provide them with spiritual protection and to allow sinful people to live together in relative peace.

God gave the sabbath to allow people to get the rest they needed. He rested, because rest is good. The teachers of the law had turned the sabbath into a burden, by giving them lots of rules to obey. This was unnecessary. All of us know how to rest. We know when are resting. We don’t need rules to help us know how to rest.

This was the point Jesus made when he healed the crippled woman (Luke 13:10-16). Her spine was so bent that she could not stand up straight. But it also meant that she could not rest, because the pain always remained. She could not even lie down flat and rest.

Jesus healed her to set her free from the bondage of the devil. He also freed her to enjoy a Sabbath rest for the first time in decades. She could lie down without pain.

Jesus called the synagogue leader a hypocrite (Luke 13:15) because he wanted to keep her in pain and unable to rest, in order to keep his sabbath rules. He had lost touch with the purpose of resting.