Lesson 75 - Matthew Ch 23

[Music] [Music] in opening up matthew chapter 23 if i were to give it a title it would be exposing the hypocrisy of the leadership exposing the hypocrisy of the leadership you know it's an interesting reality that as a person gets older and knows that death isn't far off or at almost any adult age a person becomes aware that their death is imminent they see that continuing to hide behind any kind of a personal facade of one's own building just no longer serves a useful purpose therefore we hear of deathbed confessions people who reveal starkly truthful things that they've done good and bad or they speak of things that they might know about others or about a traumatic event that needs to be confessed but they never wanted to talk about it for whatever reason and sometimes because it might have involved getting in trouble or causing upset or facing the past you know my own father served and fought in world war ii but he avoided talking about it about all any of me or my siblings knew about it was that he was in the navy and he was a sonar man it wasn't until several weeks before he passed away in his early 70s from cancer that he finally opened up and told me some of the hair-raising and deeply traumatic experience that he suffered tell me about some of his regrets how he felt about all these things yeshua has been building up for some time now to the no holds barred diatribe he unleashed against the jewish leadership beginning in earnest in matthew chapter 22 but he'd been holding it back he was acutely aware of his purpose of his impending fate and and to some degree at least i think the timing of it he also knew that when he finally did set his filter aside and said exactly what he thought about that corrupt and deceiving religious leadership that his demise would be swift and certain so what happened to his just kind of like what happened to his cousin and forerunner john the baptist when he spoke his mind so knowing that he had but days and hours to live jesus let fly all that he had been wanting to say to these leaders but also in a forum that the common people could hear it as a warning to them open up your bibles to matthew chapter 23 and follow along matthew chapter 23. [Music] then yeshua addressed the crowds and his tamidim's disciples the torah teachers and the paroshim the scribes and the pharisees he said sit in the seat of moses so whatever they tell you take care to do it but don't do what they do because they talk but they don't act they tie heavy loads onto people's shoulders but they won't lift a finger to help carry them everything they do is to be seen by others for they make their teflon broad and their zitiot long they love the place of honor at banquets the best seats in the synagogues they love being greeted differentially in the marketplaces and being called rabbi but you're not to let yourselves be called rabbi because you have one rabbi you are all each other's brothers don't call anyone on earth father because you have one father and he's in heaven nor are you to let yourselves be called leaders because you have one leader he is the messiah the greatest among you must be your servant for whatever promotes whoever promotes himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be promoted but woe to you hypocritical torah teachers and pharisees for you are shutting the kingdom of heaven people's faces neither entering yourselves nor allowing those who wish to enter to do so whoa do you hypocritical toward teachers and pharisees you go about over land and sea to make one proselyte and when you succeed you make them twice as fit for gay and home as you are whoa do you blind guides you say well someone swears by the temple he's not bound by his oath but if he swears by the gold in the temple he is bound you blind fools which is more important the gold or the temple which makes the gold holy and you say well someone swears by the altar he's not bound by his both but if he swears by the offering on the altar he's bound blind men which is more important the sacrifice or the altar which makes the sacrifice holy so someone swears by the altar who swears by the altar swears by it and everything on it and someone who swears by the temple swears by it and the one who lives in it and someone who swears by heaven swears by god's throne and the one who sits on it a woe do you hypocritical torah teachers in paroshim oh you pay your tithes of mint and dylan cumin but you've neglected the weightier matters of the torah justice mercy trust these are the things you should have attended to without neglecting the others blind guides straining out a gnat meanwhile swallowing a camel woe to you hypocritical toward teachers in paroshim you clean the outside of the cup and the dish but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence blind pharisees first clean the inside of the cup so that the outside may be clean too woe to you hypocritical torah teachers and pharisees you are like white washed tombs which look fine on the outside but inside they're full of dead people's bones and all kinds of rottenness likewise you appear to people from the outside to be good and honest but inwardly you're full of hypocrisy and far from torah woe to hypocritical torah teachers and pharisees you build tombs for the prophets you decorate the graves of the zodikim the holy men the righteous and you say had we lived when our fathers did oh we would have never taken part in killing the prophets in this you testify against yourselves that you are worthy descendants of those who murdered the prophets now go ahead and finish what your father started you snakes you sons of snakes how can you escape being condemned to gehenom therefore i am sending you prophets and sages and torah teachers and some of them you'll kill indeed you will have them executed on stakes as criminals some of them you'll flog in your synagogues and pursue them from town to town and so on you will follow the guilt of all the innocent blood that's ever been shed on earth from the blood of the innocent hebble abel to the blood of zakaria bin barakaya whom you murdered between the temple and the altar yes i tell you that all this will fall on your generation jerusalem jerusalem you killed the prophets you stone those who were sent to you oh how often i wanted to gather your children just as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings but you refused look god is abandoning your house to you leaving it desolate for i tell you from now on you will not see me again until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of adonai is that a powerful chapter see if he can accept it this chapter has yeshua displaying a distinctly negative if not pessimistic tone that we're just not used to hearing from him i might i even suggest a good old-fashioned rant of sorts you know many bible academics are so taken aback by jesus tone that they express doubts as to the authenticity of the account and they say that perhaps the gospel writer matthew was just embellishing and assuming those particular academics are wrong which i do with his life in the balance christ no longer sees a need to harness his feelings and while his ire is directed at certain of the jewish religious leadership the effect he's hoping for is to benefit the onlookers who can only be astonished if not shocked at this galilean exotic so publicly and frankly taking on these men of such great stature and authority in jewish society you know it's critical to grasp that while rome was indeed the formal civil and leader legal governing authority over the holy land the day-to-day operation of jewish society was under the watchful eye and de facto control of the jewish leaders of the synagogue system for jews there was no such thing as separation of church and state their religion was the basis for everything they did behaviors ethics morals the system of families how businesses are operated everything virtually everything was set by the synagogue leaders who seem to have been nearly exclusively members of one branch or another of the sect of the pharisees so when jesus was attacking those synagogue leaders it was because he saw them misleading the common people and putting their spiritual condition their eternal future into great jeopardy now while the temple was similarly guilty in chapter 22 yeshua had specifically called them out as well the temple leadership had far less daily influence over the lives of the people except perhaps for the ones who lived inside jerusalem at the side of the temple and thus those folks resided at the seat of the of the jewish religious government the sadducee leadership controlled the jewish court system it all matters concerning the temple meaning that they controlled all aspects of what went on during the seven biblically ordained feast events on sabbath the various sacrifi official and other temple-oriented rituals but for the average jew the temple was far away from where they lived and so their local synagogue was where they looked for guidance on just everyday matters and without doubt the synagogue leaders represented the greatest influence in their lives so in verse 1 we read that yeshua turned his attention away from the religious leadership and now he directly addressed the crowds that included his ever-present disciples of course he was essentially serving up a scathing criticism of the pharisee leadership the people's spiritual and daily life leadership he calls these leaders the scribes and the pharisees who sit in the seat of moses now the scribes were in this area this era those who are at the kind of the top of the leadership of the synagogue system the scribes were considered experts on the law and more often or not they were the ones who taught at synagogue congregational meetings now while most scribes belonged to the pharisee sec not all dead however the vast majority of scribes were pharisees such that when speaking of synagogue leadership the terms scribes and pharisees were nearly interchangeable the same way that only a few decades ago in the united states the terms american and christian were nearly interchangeable even though we all knew that technically they meant different things there remains much debate about what the seed of moses meant in the first century was it literally some kind of a chair located in a religious facility or was it a colloquial way of speaking about the position and the authority that each synagogue leader held see in christ's era very few synagogues or actual dedicated buildings use the way church buildings are today synagogues synagogue in its simplest sense means assembly the talmud claims that in jesus time there were around 400 synagogues in jerusalem archaeologists have found none zero and considering the size of jerusalem it boggles the mind to think that there would have been 400 dedicated synagogue buildings there no doubt nearly all so-called synagogues were what we might term house churches a few jews would gather together for various religious reasons at someone's home and it was called synagogue so there would could have indeed been many many many house synagogues in jerusalem at that time each one composed just a handful of individuals now as for dedicated purpose-built synagogue buildings very few have been found in the holy land very few and those that have been found are from a later era it was from that later era 3rd century and beyond that synagogues have been unearthed that have a special seat carved out of so a stone located inside the synagogue at the front of it and although no inscription identifies it it is assumed that this is the chair of the seat of moses later in modern synagogues have seats of moses in them but it's for christ's day probably not the likeliest scenario speculation is that the seat of moses referred to the one person in each synagogue that was its supreme authority the teacher and then eventually a chair of honor was included inside the structure of the synagogue building for the supreme leader to sit upon maybe during services and so that's how this special chair got its name bottom line jesus was speaking about the person that was at the head of each synagogue now yeshua gives his listeners an instruction he tells them to do what the synagogue leaders tell them to do but don't behave as they do because while these guys talk a good game they must not really believe what they're saying or they do it themselves western culture has a saying that probably came from this don't do as i do just do as i say now what this is talking about of course is hypocrisy in other words jesus is telling the people to continue to listen to the teachings of the synagogue authorities obviously he means that what they teach is generally true but not does that mean he holds with everything they teach goodness no he's already accused them of misleading the people and will accuse them of it again in the next verses however no human is going to teach god's word and his truth and perfection those of us who do teach god's word are hopefully sufficiently aware of that reality and so we ourselves remain teachable such that when one way or another we are made aware of an error we can admit it correct it move on now what's rather astonishing to me is yeshua's acceptance of the authority of the synagogue leaders and his call to the people the crowd to acknowledge it as well he reminds one of the sermon on the mount when he said this matthew 5 17-20 do not think i've come to abolish the torah of the prophets i've come not to abolish but to complete yes indeed i tell you that until heaven and earth pass away not so much as a uterus stroke will pass from the torah not till everything that must happen has happened so whoever disobeys the least of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven but whoever obeys them and so teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven for i tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than that of the torah teachers and the pharisees you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven see how that all plays together now just as yeshua is telling the people to continue to listen to what the scribes and the teachers tour teachers say so it is he tells people to do what the torah teachers and the prophets what the torah and the prophets say so it's the scribes and the and the torah teachers that instruct the people in the torah and the prophets and just like in christ's speech to the crowds here in matthew 23 where yeshua was specifically calling out those same scribes and pharisees as not living righteously themselves he did the same thing in the sermon on the mount only not quite as harshly and we know from their writings and what yeshua himself says about what these scribes and pharisees teach from is what we would call what i would call anyway a doctrinal viewpoint that is while scripture passages most certainly were read in the synagogues what those passages said were often effectively overridden by doctrines traditions by these scribes and pharisees so while the leaders claimed they were teaching the torah in fact they were teaching their preferred man-made traditions of the pharisees but back in matthew chapter 15 christ said this you hypocrites yeshua isaiah isaiah was right when he prophesied about you these people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far away from me their worship of me is useless because they teach man-made rules as if they were doctrines now notice something that matters for us to ponder taken from what yeshua said in matthew 15 that was quoting guys the prophet isaiah it isn't just that man-made rules and traditions can be technically incorrect that is interpretations of the torah that are regularly off the mark in order to justify the beliefs of a sect and thus the details given by the religious leadership are in error there may be agenda oriented the far larger issue is that the result of too much bad theological information which comes by replacing god's word with man-made doctrines is it the substance of these wrong doctrines inevitably builds up one upon the next to become the accepted basis for how we think we ought to worship god in our eyes it's good worship good worship god's eyes it's vain worship that he does not and will not accept folks listen if god does not accept our worship of him then we've lost our relationship with him i wish i could tell you at what point believing and living out and trying to worship god based on incorrect doctrine given to us from a pulpit reaches a tipping point the god finally says no more i don't accept it so i don't accept you i just don't know where that point is i also need to notice that yeshua was not teaching hypothetically this was happening in his day it was a very dangerous situation even though the people were entirely blind to it due to the leadership's irresponsible behavior and i assure you the same thing is happening today just as it was in his era it's prevalent throughout our faith institutions and it's something we must address as believers or their consequences that i really don't think any of us are prepared to face as i said earlier we're not going to reach perfection of teaching or learning this side of heaven but we can understand and acknowledge there is a problem and we can respond by seeking teaching and learning that's based on the biblical word that isn't watered down or papered over in order to agree with new and changing societal standards or even worse to my way of thinking to continue to intentionally validate long-held doctrines and traditions that never should have had any place in our worship of god never now is our as is our custom when another of the synoptic gospels relays the same or nearly the same message from christ we read it to gain as much information as we can glean about the event and what he said the gospel of luke has much of this message that we find in matthew but luke sets the scene in an entirely different arena spoken to different people open your bibles to luke chapter 11. luke chapter 11. we'll start reading at verse 37. luke chapter 11 starting at verse 37 and we'll go to the end of the chapter as yeshua spoke a parouche of pharisee asked him to eat dinner with him so he went in took his place at the table and the parouge was surprised that he didn't begin by doing this the hand washing ritual before the meal however the lord said to him now then you pharisees you clean the outside of the cup and the plate but inside you were full of robbery and wickedness fools didn't the one who made the outside make the inside too rather give his alms what is inside and then everything will be clean for you woe to you pharisees you pay your tithes of mint and rue and every garden herb but you ignore justice and the love of god you have an obligation to do these things but without disregarding the others woe to you pharisees because you love the best seat in the synagogues and be being greeted deferentially in the marketplaces woe to you because you are like unmarked graves which people walk over without knowing it one of the experts in the torah asked him rabbi by saying these things you're insulting us also yeshua said woe to you torah experts too you load people down with burdens they can hardly bear you won't lift a finger to help them woe to you you build tombs in memory of the prophets but your fathers murdered them thus you testify that you completely approve what your fathers did they did the killing you do the building therefore the wisdom of god said i will send them prophets and emissaries they will kill some persecute others so that on this generation will follow the responsibility for all the prophet's blood that has been shed since the world was established from the blood of hebel to the blood of zechariah who was killed between the altar and the holy place yes i tell you the responsibility for it will fall on this generation oh woe to you torah experts for you have taken away the key of knowledge not only did you let yourselves not go in you've stopped those who are trying to enter and as as yeshua left that place the torah teachers and the pharisees began to oppose him bitterly to revoke him to express his views on all sorts of subjects laying traps to catch him in something he might say now it's hard to know exactly where the setting of luke's narrative took place but it's easy to see the difference in the settings between it and matthew wherever it was in luke it certainly wasn't in jerusalem at the temple in luke the context is that jesus was in the home of a pharisee dining with him and it was the ritual of hand washing that came up it was out of this that the diatribe against the religious leaders came as well as the prophecy of the seven woes all right back to matthew at this point yeshua is no longer speaking to the pharisees but rather they are hearing what he's saying to the crowds and it seems that christ is deemed that the hardened of the most hardened of the the jewish leadership cannot repent scary thought and therefore they are not redeemable thus to spend any more time trying to teach them show them the area of their ways he determines is useless all that remains now is a pronouncement of their fate again yeshua is not condemning all jewish leadership he's not condemning all of the pharisees only those whom he's addressing and probably also those you could say if the shoe fits now i think perhaps the reason that yeshua deems these particular religious leaders as irredeemable is reflected in the words of verse 3 that is they know the truth they speak the truth but how do they live they don't live it they don't live the truth so in verse 41 he lays out one of the offenses they commit and it is that they place heavy burdens on the people and do a little to help them paul who called himself the pharisee of pharisees knew better than most the inside workings of the pharisee sect and what it is that they demanded of their followers in acts 15 verses 10 and 11 we read so why are you putting god to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have had the strength to bear no it is through the love and the kindness of the lord yeshua that we trust and are delivered and it's the same with them what are these burdens that jesus and later paul are referring to the most common answer we hear is that the burden too great to bear is the law of moses but finally among the more conservative modern bible scholars comes the admission this cannot be talking about the law of moses the burden for one reason the pharisees were not about the law of moses they were about their traditions they were about jewish law the burdens jesus and paul spoke of came from the demands of the pharisees not from the demands of god so this is yet another complaint by yeshua against holocaust jewish law not against the law of moses thus we see what is essentially additional context to help us understand what yeshua meant by something he said back in chapter 11. in 11 28-30 he said come to me all of you who are struggling and burdened i will give you rest take my yoke upon you learn from me because i'm gentle and humble in heart and then you'll find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy my burden is light see the struggling and the burden were made so by the teachings of the pharisees the people were constantly trying to meet the expectations of the pharisee leaders whom they trusted but as jesus tells us in chapter 23 they told people how they ought to live but they didn't do it themselves so christ says take on his yoke now the term yoke was a jewish expression and it simply meant the teachings of the teacher or religious authorities that they followed the teachers they were connected to yoked to compared to the needless the fruitless demands heavy demands of the pharisedical traditions yeshua's demands came only from the law of moses so they were far lighter one example of this that we can use in modern times is kosher eating biblical kosher eating just isn't very hard at all if one avoids shellfish certain birds pork and a couple other meats that most of us never eat anyway that pretty well satisfies god's commands on the subject but the holocaust the jewish laws on kosher eating are complex burdensome and very difficult to follow entire volumes of the talmud are dedicated to the rules for kosher eating it was this sort of thing that christ was railing against now i don't think that the final part of verse 4 is meant literally rather the entire verse is a play on words that is the pharisees tie heavy things on the backs of people but then they don't offer to shoulder some of the load this is meant metaphorically like a master trying tying a much too heavy load on his employee or his servant and then not offering to help carry it because he didn't want to exert himself rather for these jewish leaders it was all about appearance public perception not authenticity so verse 5 says that in order to get more public attention and admiration the pharisees made their tefline broad and their tzitzi long now the teflon were these small boxes attached to leather straps that were wrapped around one arm another box strapped to the forehead were what english bibles tend to call fringes or tassels although they were as though they were some kind of decorations that were used on hebrew garments now interestingly these items were not tradition they were specified to be worn in the law of moses however yeshua says that while on the surface what the pharisee leaders did had a basis in truth their exaggeration of it made it no longer godly but rather it was intended as a tension seeking you know exactly how these men broadened or enlarged their tefline it's just not certain perhaps they widened the leather straps or made the little boxes bigger some scholars think maybe they wore them for longer periods of time than was required we really don't know as for the matter of lengthening of the t seed that is no doubt literal the pharisees made them very long much more visible as a sign of their piety no doubt there was an additional cost involved in these actions and no doubt it served their purpose they indeed were believed by the common man to be especially righteous men on account of it in truth it was deception and while the people were fooled god wasn't by the way while we never do hear of yeshua wearing teflin no doubt he did or he would have been roundly criticized for not dawning to fill the donning it to fulfill the commandment we do hear of him wearing seat seat unfortunately our english translations obscure it such as in matthew 9 verse 20 a woman who had had a hemorrhage for 12 years approached him from behind and touched the tsitsi on his robe most english bibles mistranslate this verse and make zitseed into the hem of the garment or the fringe of the cloak rather than what it was and what it was was undeniable proof of jesus intent to follow the torah and the law of moses since the entire purpose of seat seat is to display that intent and to remind the wearer to do so numbers 15 verses 38-40 speak to the people of israel instructing them to make throughout all their generations sitsiot seatseed on the corner of their garments and to put with the seat seat on each corner of blue thread it is to be at seat seat for you to look at and thereby remember all of adonai's commandments and obey them so that you won't go around wherever your own heart and eyes lead you to prostitute yourselves but it will help you remember and obey all my commandments and be holy for your god now we don't need a lot of explanation for verses six and seven in matthew 23 the self glorification that these pharisee religious leaders sought of course included insisting on having the best seats at fine banquets which of course only occurred at the homes of wealthy aristocrats and they wanted to be seated up front but the synagogues is a sign of their status they also wanted people on the streets and in the marketplace to notice them to greet them differentially by addressing them as rabbi what rabbi exactly meant at that time is a little bit hard to um ascertain it probably meant something like teaching master yeshua was regularly called this it was not yet an official office or a position or a title as it would become in a few more decades later on it would take on the meaning of great one so the honor of being carried rabbi evolved over time well yeshua interrupts his white hot criticism over the pharisee leadership to tell the people how they should behave and that meant they should not imitate their leaders in this instruction there is a direct application to the church that unfortunately has been all but ignored over the centuries jesus followers are to shun honorific titles and instead we're just to view ourselves as brothers brothers equals assuming different roles in the community of believers why because while humility is to be the prime virtue required for christ's followers it's the opposite behavior that's being displayed by those jewish leaders now at first blush this passage might be a little bit difficult to cope with for one reason nearly every society i've ever known bestows titles upon people in order to establish a societal structure in a hierarchy i have no idea how we can even operate on this earth within our societies or even within the church of the synagogue without some means to distinguish people of different offices see the intent of seeing one another as brothers brothers and sisters of course in the lord is being of equal value and worth paul expressed this concept in a very great and memorable way that is at the core of how weird to see and treat one another we're going to take just a couple minutes to read it turn your bibles to first first corinthians chapter 12. first corinthians chapter 12 and we're going to read verses 12 through 27 first corinthians chapter 12. for just as the body is one but has many parts and all the parts of the body though many constitute one body so it is with the messiah for it was by one spirit that we were all immersed into one body whether jews or gentiles slaves are free and we are all given the one spirit to drink for indeed the body is not one part but many if the foot says i'm not a hand so i'm not part of the body that doesn't make it stop being part of the body and if the ear says i'm not an eye so i'm not part of the body that doesn't make it stop being part of the body if the whole body were an eye how could it hear if it were all hearing how could it smell but as it is god arranged each of the parts in the body exactly as he wanted them now if they were all just one part where would the body be but as it is there are indeed many parts yet just one body so the eye cannot see the hand i don't need you or the head to the feet i don't need you on the contrary the parts of the body that seem to be less important turn out to be all the more necessary and upon body parts which we consider less dignified we bestow greater dignity and the parts that are attractive are the ones we make as attractive as we can while our attractive parts have no need for such treatment indeed god has put the body together in such a way that he gives greater dignity to the parts that lack it so that there will be no disagreements within the body but rather all the parts will be equally concerned for all the others thus if one part suffers all the parts suffer with it and if one part is honored all the parts share its happiness now you together constitute the body of messiah and individually you are parts of it what better metaphor for which to compare the congregation of christ than to the human body see we all understand how invaluable each part of our body is and the way that it's the way that a congregation of believers needs to think about it every part of the human body has a purpose and without each part the body doesn't function as it should i mean i can't tell you why but this is one of these passages that has always affected me deeply you know when we formed the seed of abraham ministries torah class because of this passage i didn't want a title most of you that were brown back then know that i kind of afraid of getting one and i will understood how easy it is to become a little bit puffed up by it and i am in no way immune i had worked too many years in the corporate world not to understand how much titles mean to people how much deference to people of higher title was expected and shown yet in time it became clear to me that even in ministry a title was needed or especially visitors and newcomers wouldn't even know how we were structured or if we had any structure at all i mean how do you ask a person if you have no name for them so reluctantly accepted the title of pastor but is you that are here today know as do most of our visitors i much prefer just to be called tom yet if someone calls out pastor of course i respond the point is i don't think christ was declaring the end of titles or structure or hierarchy nor that titles are evil and should be abolished he is saying that we are not to use titles and positions the way that the pharisees and others in higher classes of jewish society did was a means of self-glorification self-indulgence and frankly as a means of putting others in their place which always means that the place of others their status is below the ones with the lofty titles see we must also factor in what those titles even meant the jews of the first century some of them may sound a little bit mundane to us but they sure weren't back then so says yeshua do not let yourselves be called rabbi probably meaning master teacher because they have only one rabbi who is this one rabbi that is usually thought to mean either god the father or yeshua and yet god the father seems awfully abstract for what christ is saying god is not usually thought of as master teacher it is also not usual for yeshua to give himself an honorific title so i'm rather torn in this one i do have one possibility that i lean towards without discounting the others and this may be a rather oblique reference to the holy spirit i think which has yet to indwell but that hardly meant he wasn't present john 14 26 but the counselor the holy spirit whom the father will send in my name will teach you everything that is he will remind you of everything i've said to you luke 12 11 and 12 when they bring you before the synagogues and the ruling powers and the authorities don't worry about how you will defend yourself for what you will say because when the time comes the holy spirit will teach you what you need to say there are other verses old and new testaments that characterize the holy spirit the rook hakudesh as our teacher and if one was to give the holy spirit a worldly title rabbi master teacher might not be inappropriate because yeshua says don't call anyone rabbi there's only one another title he says ought to be shunned is father abba in hebrew it cannot be that one's own parent can no longer be called father i see much disagreement not a little bit of discomfort among very good bible scholars as they wrestle with the point jesus is making here once again i think the issue is not the word father but how it is used to establish an honorific title in the religious sphere which will inevitably be used to establish a pecking order of status it seems its status is something that yeshua has been battling against all during his earthly ministry especially since yeshua anointed peter as the rock upon which yeshua will establish his congregation of followers his disciples have worried incessantly about which of them which among them was the greater how they would be placed in a hierarchy of authority and status once yeshua was king or he was dead yeshua had taught in matthew chapter 6 how we're to pray he says our prayers are to be addressed to one person and one person only our father in heaven god the father so to christ it would be incongruent to accept any person on earth giving himself a title among his followers so unique and high as father it is sad that in some christian denominations this clear instruction is altogether ignored and the title father is bestowed on certain people of authority within the church with the inevitable results well the sections next turns to the term leader and again one has to ask how any organization can even operate if there's no leaders or the leaders can't be identified as the leaders yeshua has proved himself time after time to be a practical man and he certainly doesn't get bogged down with minutia thus his point must be that his body of followers is not to set anyone on a pedestal as its supreme leader except for the messiah still jesus doesn't defend identify himself to the public as the messiah although he's already revealed himself to his inner circle of twelve the commonality you see among the forbidden terms rabbi father and leader are that they are all divine in the rather veiled sense jesus is using them i think rabbi is probably pointing to the holy spirit father is obvious as god the father and leader jesus says outright that's the messiah now did the crowd get yeshua's meaning i don't think so but it would make a good and memorable point to his disciples later to his millions of followers if his history unfolded if only now we'd pay attention to it we'll continue with math matthew chapter 23 next time [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

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Keywords: Beatitudes, Hebrew Heritage, Parables, Torah Class, Bible, Bible Study, Christ, Christian, Christianity, God, Hebrew Roots, Jesus, Jews, Matthew, New Testament, Seed of Abraham, Sermon on the Mount, Son of God, Tom Bradford, Yeshua

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Length: 55min 42sec (3342 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 29 2021