Read Matthew 23
The first of
the woes—the kingdom of heaven.
You Pharisees
don’t want people to live in the kingdom of heaven; yet, you don’t live there yourself. What’s up with that?
If anyone
truly entered the kingdom of heaven, the rules of the world and the secular
demands of the religious hypocrites would have no hold on anyone.
The
Pharisees enjoyed their high standing.
They didn’t want anyone cutting into that. They wanted to use God’s word to control and
not to empower the people who sought after him.
Did they not
understand how much greater it would be to live among people empowered by God
to do God’s will?
Do we
understand that making someone less does not make us more? We know many people like this. They want to bring down, discredit, gossip
about someone else so they feel better than those they have disparaged.
This section
is a protracted monologue by our Lord about the Pharisees and other religious
hypocrites. It is one chastising after
another without counsel to us.
So, here is
our counsel from the full biblical witness.
Pride leads us to shame. Humility keeps company with wisdom.
He who despises his neighbor lacks sense.
Do nothing out of vain ambition or selfish deceit.
Seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your
God.
We are not
in competition with others. We serve God
by serving others. We should celebrate
when the lost come home. We should
rejoice as others seek to follow the Lord.
We only have
to think back a few verses in this chapter.
Whoever
exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment