The Woes (Matthew 23:13-36)
1. Woe to those who shut the gates of the Kingdom:
Jesus said it takes an awareness of our poverty of spirit, it takes the mourning of broken-hearted humility, to enter the Kingdom. Don’t ever be someone who in a righteous pride leads people astray to a system of legalism and moral merit.
2. Woe to those whose converts are sons of hell, who promote a false ideology:
What sort of system of belief do you preach? Are you selling a religious ideology teaching people to be right, or offering a restored relationship with God through grace? Jesus preached that the meek, the unworthy, would inherit the earth.
3. Woe to those who miss the point through blindness:
Jesus said we should hunger and thirst for righteousness, holiness. The pharisees twisted themselves and their teaching into knots figuring out ways to gain from exemptions to their legalistic rules. When we see religion as just a series of hoops to jump through, we miss the point of restoration.
4. Woe to those who major on the minors:
As legalists, the religious leaders concentrated on all the details of the law, and their focus was on making people obey down to the smallest of those details. In so doing, they missed the point of the holy life that the law prescribed. Jesus said it was the merciful who would receive mercy. The pharisees were too preoccupied with taxing herbs to look for justice and mercy.
5. Woe to the filthy with polished outsides:
Jesus called for the pure in heart, but the religious leaders only cared about appearances. What good is it to appear perfect when one is broken and corrupt on the inside? It is good for people only interested in power and influence; what people think. But the pure in heart will see God.
6. Woe to the white-washed tombs:
More than just an issue of righteousness, the religious appearances game hides the fact that legalistically religious people are spiritually dead. They are no better than irreligious people. Jesus wanted peacemakers, people who are pursuing peace with God. They are the sons of God, and that happens on His terms, not the religious ones.
7. Woe to those who kill rather than respect God’s messengers:
Jesus said that those persecuted for His sake would be blessed. But the religious people of His day—those who claimed to love the prophets and messengers of God—were a continuation of the people who persecuted and killed those very messengers. And they were about to take it a step further and kill the Son of God.
Take guard never to fall into the trap of religion—any system that takes God’s message and distorts it into a message of our own making for our own benefit.
Jesus said it takes an awareness of our poverty of spirit, it takes the mourning of broken-hearted humility, to enter the Kingdom. Don’t ever be someone who in a righteous pride leads people astray to a system of legalism and moral merit.
2. Woe to those whose converts are sons of hell, who promote a false ideology:
What sort of system of belief do you preach? Are you selling a religious ideology teaching people to be right, or offering a restored relationship with God through grace? Jesus preached that the meek, the unworthy, would inherit the earth.
3. Woe to those who miss the point through blindness:
Jesus said we should hunger and thirst for righteousness, holiness. The pharisees twisted themselves and their teaching into knots figuring out ways to gain from exemptions to their legalistic rules. When we see religion as just a series of hoops to jump through, we miss the point of restoration.
4. Woe to those who major on the minors:
As legalists, the religious leaders concentrated on all the details of the law, and their focus was on making people obey down to the smallest of those details. In so doing, they missed the point of the holy life that the law prescribed. Jesus said it was the merciful who would receive mercy. The pharisees were too preoccupied with taxing herbs to look for justice and mercy.
5. Woe to the filthy with polished outsides:
Jesus called for the pure in heart, but the religious leaders only cared about appearances. What good is it to appear perfect when one is broken and corrupt on the inside? It is good for people only interested in power and influence; what people think. But the pure in heart will see God.
6. Woe to the white-washed tombs:
More than just an issue of righteousness, the religious appearances game hides the fact that legalistically religious people are spiritually dead. They are no better than irreligious people. Jesus wanted peacemakers, people who are pursuing peace with God. They are the sons of God, and that happens on His terms, not the religious ones.
7. Woe to those who kill rather than respect God’s messengers:
Jesus said that those persecuted for His sake would be blessed. But the religious people of His day—those who claimed to love the prophets and messengers of God—were a continuation of the people who persecuted and killed those very messengers. And they were about to take it a step further and kill the Son of God.
Take guard never to fall into the trap of religion—any system that takes God’s message and distorts it into a message of our own making for our own benefit.
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