Reflective Bible Study

After Jesus finished countering the religious leaders’ growing set of challenges with a question of His own that they were unable to answer, Jesus turns and challenges the crowd and His disciples regarding the Pharisees and the scribes. However, while we are quick to point out the religious leaders’ hypocrisy in Jesus’ statement, we too easily miss something that Jesus tells the crowd that seems impossible.

While our passage is long and we might not make it through all of it, let’s dive in and discover what Jesus teaches us about the scribes and the Pharisees. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 23, and we will be reading it from the New American Standard Bible. Starting in verse 1:

¹ Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, ² saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; ³ therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. ⁴ They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. 

Let’s pause here for a moment because Jesus just said something that we might easily miss. While Jesus has just challenged the religious leaders and framed their hypocrisy as their words not matching their actions, we might be tempted to throw out everything the religious leaders said and did as worthless.

But this is not what Jesus told the crowd in these opening verses. He tells the crowd to follow what the religious leaders teach, but don’t mimic the religious leaders’ actions. The religious leaders teach an ideal that they are unwilling to live up to.

However, when we look at Jesus’ words, the ideal that the religious leaders are pointing people to is not bad. The ideal actually is living within the law on all fronts, and actually it is well away from breaking the law. But the religious leaders acted in a way that cheapened their influence and authority. They didn’t practice what they preached.

Before continuing the passage, the ideal that the religious leaders had placed on the people was all but impossible to attain. It was a great ideal for people to shoot for, but both the law and the ideal standard the religious leaders held up was based on not breaking the law. However, one of the biggest reasons God gave us the law was to help people see and remember their need of a Savior and to remind people that the punishment for their sin was placed on something and ultimately Someone else.

However, when the religious leaders lost the reason for the law and for the sacrifices, their religion became a ritual that had lost its true meaning. Without love and thankfulness in their hearts for what the law pointed to, the law become elevated into God’s standard that He would punish them for at the instant they broke even the tiniest clause. Without seeing the blessing the law pointed towards, the religious leaders feared God’s punishment and they set up regulations to keep people from even breaking the law.

This was great until the focus was so much on avoiding the law that they lost the love, and pride, arrogance, and status crept into their hearts and they began to value their status over their call to serve others. Verse 4 describes the current state of the religious leaders the following way: “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.”

Continuing in verse 5:

⁵ But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their *phylacteries [small boxes that contained scriptures] and lengthen the tassels of their garments. ⁶ They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, ⁷ and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men. ⁸ But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. ⁹ Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. ¹⁰ Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. ¹¹ But the greatest among you shall be your servant. ¹² Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

We’ll stop reading here. The rest of our passage continues by both warning and challenging the scribes and Pharisees regarding their focus, their attitudes, and the hypocrisy of their actions. Jesus elaborates His statement about the Pharisees and religious leaders doing their deeds to be admired by others, and how they had elevated themselves over everyone else.

However, in this opening statement for the rest of the passage, Jesus gives us a powerful frame of reference that we should pay attention to. While the scribes and Pharisees focused on status, and being praised and looked up to by others, Jesus tells His disciples and all His followers that they should avoid this. When giving us a new frame of reference, Jesus challenges us to remember who God is and what He does for us.

In an interesting twist, we discover each of the members of the Godhead in Jesus’ new frame of reference.

The first thing Jesus shares is that we shouldn’t call each other Rabbi, which is another word for teacher. In a similar way, we might be better served by avoiding the word pastor, preacher, or teacher as well. All these terms focus on separating those with knowledge and information from those who don’t have access to it. These terms focus on looking up to those with the knowledge and following them.

Jesus challenges this frame of reference by reminding us that God is our Teacher; God is our Rabbi. While Jesus was the One teaching them in that moment, the member of the Godhead who is responsible for teaching is the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes, one responsibility He has is leading God’s people into all truth. We should look to God to teach us, especially relating to all things spiritual.

Next Jesus challenges us to not call anyone on earth our father, because we all have One Father, and this Father is who is in Heaven. We call this Father, God the Father, and He is just as responsible for us being alive on this earth as our biological parents are. God the Father created each of us, and because He did this, we can know and trust that He has a plan for our lives.

Lastly, Jesus challenges us to not call anyone our leader because we have One Leader, and this Leader is Christ. We shouldn’t focus on the idea of leadership but instead of service towards others. If we look up to anyone to lead us, the One we should be looking to is Christ, the Son, Jesus.

When looking at this clear challenge Jesus gives us in Matthew’s gospel, we discover that both in the Christian world and in the secular world, people call each other teacher, father, and leader. While each term might be not as widespread in certain groups, all three terms that Jesus challenges us to reserve for God are widely used to describe humans.

Some of these terms we cannot help but use in certain contexts, but with how Jesus concludes this section of His teaching, we discover that while we cannot stop others from using these terms, our focus should be different. Jesus challenges His people to focus on serving one another, and on being humble.

Each of the terms Jesus describes as reserved for God are terms of status. If we seek to be known as a teacher, a father, or a leader, we seek to exalt ourselves, and Jesus tells us that this will result in us being humbled. Instead, we are to serve others humbly, and if they see us as a teacher, a father, or a leader, we humbly point them to God, who is our Teacher, our Father, and our Leader!

Jesus challenges us to look to God for our knowledge, because He is our Teacher; our purpose, because He is our Father; and our mission, because He is our Leader!

As we conclude another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Seek God first and look to Him for knowledge, for purpose, and for mission. While the world wants to be the source of each of these things, God is the only source that can truly answer all of these desires in a satisfactory way.

As you seek God first and as you seek the answers for these areas of life, be sure to always pray and study the Bible for yourself. Through prayer and Bible study, we are able to draw near to God and we grow our relationship with Him. As we grow closer to God, all three areas of life become clearer.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never back away from, chicken out of, or wander away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As Jesus nears the end of His famous Sermon on the Mount, He challenges those in the crowd, as well as His followers, about a couple things before giving them a big promise that directly relates to how God answers prayers. If you have felt condemned by God, or if you’ve felt as though your prayers are going unheard, perhaps this portion of Jesus’ sermon was shared just for you, and perhaps for people who have felt similar to you.

Let’s dive in and discover what Jesus taught those present about God. Our passage for this episode is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 7, and we will read it from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 1, Jesus tells the crowd of followers:

¹ “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ² For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

³ “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

⁶ “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

Let’s pause briefly here to focus on some of what Jesus has just shared. In this portion of our passage, Jesus challenges His followers to only judge others in the same way they would like to be judged. What is interesting about this challenge is that when we judge others, we look at their actions and we assume their intentions from their actions.

However, when we judge ourselves, we look at our intentions and filter the meaning of our actions through our intentions. This is like saying that we judge others by what they did, but we expect to be judged for what we do by why we did it.

This is what Jesus warned us about, because if we judge others by their actions, we will ultimately be judged by our actions as well. Knowing this spiritual rule, we should be even more forgiving and loving towards others, because if we “judge” others through the filter of “forgiveness” and “reuniting people together” then that is how we will be judged, which is another way of saying that we will also experience forgiveness and acceptance.

When we look at other people, we are quick to see even the tiniest fault they have, but when we look at ourselves, we are blind to the biggest faults of our own. If we want to help others with their problems, we should first be conscious, aware, and working to remove the huge faults from our own life as well. We probably should also be careful and cautious about how we approach offering our help to others. If the person we want to help is aware of their speck but also aware of our plank, then it is unlikely they would want our help and it is unlikely they will change their minds regardless of how insistent we are offering our help.

Before moving to the second section of our passage, Jesus shares an interesting metaphor warning us to not throw sacred things to dogs or pearls to pigs. While this has been understood to mean a number of things, or to suggest a number of different things, I think Jesus is warning us to not be too quick about sharing spiritual things with those who are not interested in spiritual matters. This would be like advising us to not take what is precious to us and give it to a pack of dogs or a herd of pigs. Neither group of animals would value it like you might hope they would, and in the same way, people who are unconcerned about spiritual things are not going to care about the spiritual things that you want to share. They might even hate you for it.

However, Jesus then turns his attention onto prayer and onto how we should expect God to answer our requests. Continuing in verse 7, Jesus tells those present:

⁷ “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

⁹ “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? ¹¹ If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! ¹² So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

In this passage, when we pray and when we ask God for the things we need, sometimes it seems as though He is ignoring us. However, according to this promise, God will give us what we ask for, help us find what we seek, and will open the doors we knock on. This seems simple enough, except for what Jesus then follows up by saying.

Jesus challenges those present when they think about a parent/child relationship that those in the parent role want to give what is good, helpful, and safe to their children. Jesus says that this is even the case with evil people. However, what about God, who knows the end from the beginning, and who knows exactly what we need even if what we need is not what we are asking for?

If we are asking for what God sees as a snake or a stone, which in this context are two things that are not beneficial for us, do you think God will give us something He knows will hurt us? While our requests are sincere and from our perspective, we are asking for what we believe we need, God has a much bigger perspective and a much bigger goal for our lives than we can imagine. God’s ultimate goal is saving us, and as many people as possible for eternity, and with that perspective, if what we are asking for will put God’s goals in jeopardy, then He isn’t going to answer our prayer in the way we think He should answer it.

When we pray, we should pray with trust in God that the answers He sends are exactly what we need to help us, and those around us, to be saved for eternity – even if the answers He sends are not the same as the prayers we prayed.

It is interesting in my mind that Jesus concludes this idea by saying that the law is summed up in the phrase “do to others what you would have them do to you”. Jesus has just been talking about prayer and about God’s gifts to us. It is as though this thought could extend beyond just our interaction with each other and it give us a frame of reference to understand God as well.

Within the context of Jesus’ message, we can understand Jesus telling us that God gave us everything He had, including His own Son to take the punishment for our sins — and while God doesn’t require the same back from us, it is what He desires to see. God did for us what He would want us to do for Him!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, be sure to seek God first and to love God like He has loved you. When looking for examples of how God has loved you and placed humanity first, look no further than what Jesus did for us. Jesus left Heaven, became human, suffered ridicule and rejection from those who should have known better, and ultimately Jesus gave His life. The Bible teaches that after Jesus’ resurrection and return to heaven, He is still ministering on our behalf before God’s throne in the Heavenly sanctuary. Jesus has given Himself entirely to humanity!

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself. Don’t take my word for anything, or anyone else’s word for that matter. Instead, study out God’s truth for yourself in prayer and Bible study to know for yourself what He teaches us through His Word.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or leave where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Coming right after the passage we focused on last week, we discover in our passage for this week that Jesus has a question for the religious leaders. When reading about this event, our last few weeks of episodes most likely cover one long event, and this event finds Jesus facing a series of questions challenging His ministry and His role.

However, the passage we focused in on last week didn’t seem to be much of a challenge. A religious teacher asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is and Jesus answered by quoting the law where it talks about loving God and Jesus follows up with the second most important commandment which is love for our neighbor.

The religious teacher agrees with Jesus, and it appeared to be the end of the discussion. However, part of me wonders if our passage for this week has Jesus speak up with a counter question before the religious leaders can regroup with a new question. Perhaps Jesus knows the next question that will come and He wants to short-circuit it before it gets asked.

Let’s read our passage and discover what Jesus asks the crowd of people who are present and what we can learn from what is said and the question that might not have had the chance to get asked. Our passage is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 12, and we will read it using the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 35, Mark tells us that:

³⁵ While Jesus was teaching in the temple courtyard, he asked, “How can the experts in Moses’ Teachings say that the Messiah is David’s son? ³⁶ David, guided by the Holy Spirit, said,

‘The Lord said to my Lord:
    “Take the honored position—the one next to me [God the Father] on the heavenly throne
        until I put your enemies under your control.”’

³⁷ David calls him Lord. So how can he be his son?”

The large crowd enjoyed listening to him.

In this short question and quotation, we discover some profound ideas. Right before our event and Jesus’ counter question, Jesus had just shared the most important commandment, which in verses 29-30, Jesus quotes in full by saying “Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. So love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

This commandment stresses the singular nature of God. The question that likely was being formulated in the religious leaders’ minds was the question challenging Jesus on this very idea. If God is One and Jesus claimed to be God, then they had successfully trapped Jesus in His own words. While Jesus was both God and man, this union of Creator and creation isn’t something we can really understand. If Jesus was asked this question, it is possible there is no good, easy to understand answer.

So Jesus jumps in with His own question that challenges the premise of the question the religious leaders are all thinking, and in His response, He subtly gives Himself a role in the prophetic words David spoke.

Jesus attributes this psalm to David being guided by the Holy Spirit, and we discover in this psalm a conversation between God the Father and God the Son. This psalm has messianic connections because God the Father is pictured as being a deliverer and letting the Messiah sit next to Him while He deals with the Messiah’s enemies.

This psalm describes an event in Heaven, and it is a discussion among the members of the Godhead. This detail challenges the notion that God is one singular being. This detail also challenges the idea that God is singular but different at different points in history. This detail draws our attention onto two member of the Godhead, and Jesus alludes to the third Member of the Godhead in the opening statement to His question.

Not only does this question and quotation challenge the argument the religious leaders were forming about God being One, singular Being, but it also suggests that the Messiah existed before David, and that in itself challenges the idea that the Messiah is David’s descendant.

The only way all these details can be reconciled is a union between God and humanity, through a virgin birth. This detail makes sense on one level to us living thousands of years later, but it is still about as difficult and unbelievable as it was to someone hearing it for the first time in the first century.

Since the religious leaders didn’t believe God liked humanity enough to become a human, they could not fathom the idea that the Messiah could be a descendant of David, while also being a member of the Godhead. It is in this dilemma the religious leaders create for themselves that Jesus steps into. With the religious leaders’ preconceived ideas, Jesus asks them a question they want to answer, but they cannot. This question is perfect because it silenced both the question they were planning on asking, and it silences all their future challenges because it challenged the foundation of their entire tradition.

This conversation, and this question, challenges us today. While there are many people who believe Jesus was simply a good teacher who had some nice things to say, will we be willing to believe that God actually became human, and as a human, that God lived and died to take the punishment for our sins?

Meeting Jesus and knowing who He is can be discovered up to a point, but past that point, we must have faith. Knowing how Jesus can be both human and divine is something we cannot fully comprehend, but we don’t have to understand it to believe that it is true. All that matters is that God knows how it is possible, and that He made it possible for us.

Because Jesus became human and because He died the death we deserved, we have the hope of an eternal future life with God in heaven.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Always seek God first and have faith when faced with ideas we cannot understand. Always push forward to learn and discover more, but know that time will end before we reach the end of what God wants to teach us.

As always, pray and study the Bible for yourself, and don’t take my word, or any pastor, podcaster, author, or speaker’s word for it. Discover God’s truth straight from the Holy Spirit inspired Bible, and study it in preparation for learning directly from God when Jesus returns!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of or back away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue moving through Matthew’s gospel, and specifically through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Jesus comes to a challenging message, but unlike some of the previously challenging messages, this challenge is about something that isn’t specifically a sin, but a challenge related to trust.

Let’s read what Jesus told the crowd, before unpacking how this is relevant in our lives over 2,000 years later. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 6, and we will read it from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 25, Jesus continued preaching, saying:

²⁵ “So I tell you, don’t worry about the food or drink you need to live, or about the clothes you need for your body. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothes. ²⁶ Look at the birds in the air. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. And you know that you are worth much more than the birds. ²⁷ You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? Look at how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t work or make clothes for themselves. ²⁹ But I tell you that even Solomon with his riches was not dressed as beautifully as one of these flowers. ³⁰ God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today but tomorrow is thrown into the fire. So you can be even more sure that God will clothe you. Don’t have so little faith! ³¹ Don’t worry and say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ ³² The people who don’t know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. ³³ Seek first God’s kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well. ³⁴ So don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have its own worries. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

In this passage and message to everyone present, Jesus challenges us on the validity of worrying about things in our lives. Jesus basically says in these few verses that worry is worthless. Worry does not gain us anything positive.

So then why do we worry if it isn’t productive or positive?

I don’t have a good answer for this question, except to give the theory that worry comes from a lack of trust. For those who believe in God, worry comes from not trusting that God will have all the details worked out. For those who don’t believe in God, worry is simply not trusting that things will work out in the end.

Sometimes this fear is warranted. Sometimes, God, or life, doesn’t make things work out for us. Sometimes bad things do ultimately happen. While this could be a great place to talk about why bad things happen to good people and bad people alike, I will resist the urge to do so here.

Instead, our passage focuses us on the singular topic of worry. Jesus directly gives us the challenge in verse 27, “You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.”

Worry is not productive. Worry does not benefit our lives in any way. In contrast to worry, we might spend a few minutes planning some “what if” scenarios, but after we have decided on the various courses of action, then we move forward with life ready to take whatever action is planned out based on the outcome of what we are concerned about.

This strategy balances planning and trust. If we are concerned about something we cannot change or affect, then worrying about it doesn’t do any good. Instead, we should plan what we will do when an outcome to the situation happens. Having a plan lessens worry.

In contrast, the things that cause us to worry where we can change the outcome are not things worth worrying about. Instead, we must intentionally work to improve the situation and to bring about the change we would like to see happen. While most situations have more variables we cannot control than the variables we can, we must focus on doing only what we specifically can and then trusting God will work out the other details.

There is no getting around trust being the antidote for worry. However, when we are tempted to worry, there is something else we can do can help grow our trust if it is weak. This other thing will seem obvious and maybe a little cliché when I say it, but that doesn’t change its validity.

When we are tempted to worry, we should turn to God in prayer and ask Him for two things: We should ask Him to help the situation we are worried about in the best way possible from His perspective, and we should ask Him for help trusting that He knows best.

While we might have an idea of what outcome we would like to see in any given situation, our perspective isn’t God’s, and it is better to defer some of the big decisions and big challenges to God because some of these things are better left in His hands.

Remember that above everything else, God wants each of us to ultimately end up with Him in heaven. This means two things. First, this means that we have faith in Jesus and that we have a saving relationship with Him. Secondly, this means that we must actually want to go to heaven. While the first is obvious for most people, the second is where things get challenging.

If God were to take every single piece of bad out of this world, there would be very little desire to go somewhere better. In a way that I don’t understand all that well, when bad things happen in this world, one outcome that is positive is that we are reminded that God has a better place in mind for our future, and that we can trust He will take us there when He returns.

Remember that when bad things happen or when we are tempted to worry about a potentially bad thing happening, trusting in God is the antidote for our worry. We can mix this trust with a few minutes planning some “what if” scenarios, but after we have these plans in place, we trust God will work things out as He knows best. We can even pray for His best outcome to happen and that He will help us trust that whatever happens is for the best from an eternal perspective.

Worry by itself is worthless. However, if worry prompts us to plan, act, and trust in God even more, then it accomplished what it was designed to do. Worry is only present to remind us we are not trusting God, and when we trust God, worry get’s pushed away.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, continue to seek God first in your life, and when worry wants to challenge your trust in God, take your worry to God in prayer, asking for more trust, and asking for guidance moving forward. While we can make plans for what could possibly happen, regardless of what happens, we want to follow the path God knows is best when He brings resolution to what we are concerned about. Prayer is the best way to ask God for help with trust when worry wants to invade our lives.

With our prayer, we should also be sure to regularly study the Bible for ourselves to learn how God has worked in the past and how He has promised us He will do the same in our lives. While our lives and our world are very different from the world and lives of those who lived back then, trusting God when challenges come is always relevant.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or be scared away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!