Tag Archives: hypocrisy

Nailed Again!

Bible Study, , , , ,

NAILED AGAIN!

Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch Him in His words. They came to Him and said, ‘Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?’

But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. ‘Why are you trying to trap me?’ He asked. ’Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.’ They brought the coin, and He asked them, ‘Whose image is this? And whose inscription?’ ‘Caesar’s.’ they replied. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’ And they were amazed at Him (Mark 12: 12-17).

Would they never learn? The religious leaders could not face Jesus again. He had made them look stupid so many times that they sent representatives to try again. They so desperately wanted to trap Him so that they could arrest and indict Him for speaking against Rome that they just would not stop trying.

Did you notice the words of the ones who came to Him? Their words were strangely accurate if they really meant them. They would have been expressing their sincere evaluation of Jesus had they not been buttering Him up for the attack. “A man of integrity.” True! “Not swayed by others.” Absolutely! “Pay no attention to who they are.” Exactly! “Teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.” Spot on! So why did they refuse to believe Him? Why were they so intent on getting rid of Him?

Simply because they were not interested in the truth. They had to defend their position at all costs because it was comfortable and lucrative for them. They had to protect their interests with Rome. Get Him on the wrong side of Rome, and they had it made. Interesting that the representatives of the religious leaders were Pharisees and Herodians – two groups on opposite ends of the scale.

So what was their problem? Always the burning question – paying taxes to Rome! Roman taxation financially crippled the people. And to make matters worse, there were some from among their own who were in bed with the Romans – collecting taxes for them and feathering their own nests in the bargain. “Let’s nail Jesus on this one,” they thought. “Surely He does not approve of the heavy taxation burdening His own people?” One word from Him and there would be an uprising because the people hung on His every word.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Jesus caught on to their scheme. He cut right through their flattering words to their hypocritical hearts. “Bring me a coin.” He ordered them. They should have known better. What was He up to now? Producing a coin, they listened intently. Was this their moment? He held it up for all to see and demanded, “Whose face is on this coin?” Mystified, they replied, “Caesar’s.” Turning it over, He asked, “Whose title is on this side?” Once again they were forced to reply, “Caesar’s.”

Suddenly the penny dropped. “Give back to Caesar what is his and to God what is His.” He declared and, turning on His heel, He walked away. Did they have egg on their faces! Once again they had made a fool of themselves in public. Instead of catching Jesus, He caught them. He neither sanctioned nor condemned the paying of taxes to Caesar. They were part of a world system that needed money to keep it going. It was neither right nor wrong to pay taxes – it was necessary.

On the other hand, there was another system in place – an unseen kingdom over which God ruled. There were obligations to fulfil in this kingdom as well. Jesus had come to teach the people that God had the right to call the shots regarding the way He ruled over the hearts of men. His was a rule of mercy and grace. His people were to live in the world system in the spirit of His truth as representatives of their God in the world. This was the part the religious leaders refused to accept. Their corrupt hearts adhered to the world system of greed and selfishness.

Every word Jesus spoke exposed their wicked hearts. They had to find a way to silence Him so that they could carry on in their evil ways without His continual prodding and poking at their sin.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Clay Feet!

Bible Study, , , ,

CLAY FEET

“When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned, For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

“When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?'” Galatians 2:11-14.

Even Peter! How strong are the traditions that enslave a person’s conscience!

 

Peter was far from Jerusalem. There were no scrupulously traditional Jewish believers in the vicinity of Antioch, so he freely mixed with Gentiles according to the dream which had led him to enter Cornelius’ the centurion’s house in Caesarea and eat with him (Acts 10). But when a group of Jewish believers came from James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, he slipped back into his old Jewish attitude of exclusivism.

For Peter it was not a matter of conscience or conviction. He had long dealt with the right or wrong of eating with Gentiles – which was an expression of reconciliation; the Holy Spirit had seen to that. Here it was a matter of the fear of man and Paul was quick to rebuke him, even publicly, for going back on his conviction in order to appear loyal to his Jewish heritage. He wasn’t even honouring the word of God but rather Jewish customs which actually contradicted God’s intention.

In his defines of the gospel of grace he preached, Paul referred to this incident to convince his Galatian readers that he had actually stood up to the great Peter whom he had just described as one of the “esteemed” leaders of the church in Jerusalem.

By Peter’s behaviour he had inadvertently dishonoured the gospel of Christ which was the good news of salvation through Him alone. Peter was insinuating that Jesus had not really destroyed the barrier between Jew and Gentile through His death; that Jews were still superior to Gentiles, and showed it by their refusal to eat with fellow Gentile believers. In the end he was saying that he had to uphold the customs of his forefathers which took precedence over the truth of the gospel.

For Paul this was unthinkable. He had given up too much for the sake of the gospel and suffered too much at the hands of his fellow Jews because of their fanatical loyalty to useless traditions to sanction Peter’s hypocrisy by keeping quiet. To say nothing meant that he was allowing Peter to lead others, even his companion Barnabas, astray. If it meant publicly exposing Peter’s cock-eyed thinking, so be it.

Paul does not record Peter’s response. Did he defend himself? Did he make excuses? Did he graciously acknowledge his error? We do not know. All we know is that Paul clearly understood the message of the cross and he defended it fearlessly even to standing up to Peter himself. It was not his intention to belittle Peter or to show himself better than Peter. It was always and only his motive to hold Jesus up as an all-sufficient Saviour for both Jew and Gentile.

Paul had long since come to understand that, at the cross, everyone stands on level ground. There is no longer a difference between Jew and Gentile. All the differences that existed were artificial and man-made. The Jews, as God’s covenant people were chosen, not to make them exclusive, but to set them apart for a divine purpose – to show the world that their God was the only and true God by the way they lived.

They failed dismally, anyway, and all they did was to show how impossible it was to be like Him by following rules and rituals, most of which they made up, without having their hearts changed. It took the Son of God to show them how to love like the Father, and then to die in the place of sinners to reconcile them to the Father. Where, in all that, were they better than anyone else? They stood on level ground with every other human being in both their sin and their eligibility to receive God’s grace through the death of His Son.

Thanks to Paul’s understanding and clear presentation of the truth, Peter and his companions received correction and we have this letter which presents Jesus to us as the all-sufficient Saviour of sinners plus nothing.

How true it is that anyone, including Peter, can have “clay feet”!

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Pharisee Phoniness

Christian Life, , ,

PHARISEE PHONINESS

“By this time the crowd, unwieldy and stepping on each other’s toes, numbered into thousands. But Jesus’ primary concern was His disciples. He said to them, ‘Watch yourselves carefully so that you don’t get contaminated with the Pharisees’ yeast, Pharisee phoniness. You can’t keep yourself hidden forever; before long you’ll be exposed. You can’t hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known. You can’t whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite in public; the day’s coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town.'” Luke 12:1-3 (The Message).

It’s amazing how comfortable Jesus was in the company of tax collectors and ‘sinners’. He ate with them, symbolising that He had no issues with them. He spent time with them in preference to the religious ones. You never read long accusations against them from His mouth and yet…He had so much to say against the Pharisees.

He hated Pharisaic attitudes so much that He spent time warning His disciples against them. ‘Don’t even keep company with people like that,’ He said, “because you will be contaminated with their ‘yeast’.’ Why?

Is it possible that God is far less fazed by the obvious sins that we find so heinous, sins like adultery, lying, stealing, murder, etc., than He is by the two-facedness of the Pharisees? Why did Jesus hate their hypocrisy? The people He hobnobbed with had no need to be told how bad they were. They knew it and they welcomed Him because He accepted them and offered them hope.

A comment I wrote in my Bible long ago says it all. ‘Religion is the most difficult disease to cure because it infects with such self-righteousness that no sense of need remains.’ Isn’t that the difference between the ‘sinners’ and the Pharisees, no sense of need?

Sinners, for example, like Zaccheus, grasped the forgiveness Jesus offered and received new life from Him. The Pharisees covered up their wickedness with a veneer of religion and pursued their greedy lives thinking that no-one knew what was behind their masks.

Jesus warned that the rot could not be covered up forever. Sooner or later they would be found out and exposed for who they really were. Imagine the shame of such exposure, especially because they were supposed to be representatives of God to the people.

God is never fooled by the face we show to the world. I quote from a message from Bill Johnson of Bethel Church, Redding, CA. ‘Jesus loves to offend the mind in order to expose the heart.’ God’s desire is to expose our darkness by turning on the light of His truth. The problem is that, like the Pharisees, we prefer the darkness because our deeds are evil. Our ‘darkness’ infects our world like the Pharisees’ darkness infected theirs.

Instead of scuttling under the rocks like bugs in the light, Jesus yearns for us to come clean so that we can walk in the light with Him. Our masks may hide our true faces for a while but sooner or later they will slip and then…?