Six Woes
37When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. 38But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised.
39Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? 41But give what is inside the dish [j] to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
An exchange similar to this appears in Mark 7:1-23. See my post on that passage here. That incident and this one start in similar ways, but then go in different directions, which means they were most likely separate incidents rather than different gospel accounts of the same incident. The fact that controversy arose more than once over the issue of ceremonial hand washing makes me wonder if Jesus did this purposely in order to provoke a reaction from the Pharisees. This was not the kind of hygenic hand washing with soap and water that we do today. It was strictly ceremonial, was done in a very specific way, without soap, and was done even between courses of a meal. It wasn’t that the Pharisees thought Jesus was eating with dirty hands. They were offended that he, as a rabbi, did not observe all the rituals that they thought were so important.
It may seem rude of Jesus to have accepted a dinner invitation from one of these Pharisees and then insulted him in his home. But these were probably the same Pharisees who had just been accusing Jesus of casting out demons with the help of Beelzebub and asking for signs. I can’t help but wonder if Jesus, after having put up with their criticism all day, accepted this invitation and purposely snubbed their silly customs in order to get them to open the door for him to tell them what he thought of them. The Pharisees were like a lot of people today, more interested in outside appearances than inward cleanliness. I love the Amplified translation of verse 40;
40You senseless (foolish, stupid) ones [acting without reflection or intelligence]! Did not He Who made the outside make the inside also?
Senseless, foolish, stupid ones acting without reflection or intelligence. He’s calling them idiots! At their own dinner table! His solution in verse 41 is interesting. The New Living Bible puts it like this:
41 So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over.
So many of us think living the Christian life is just about the things we don’t do. But there are more do’s in the Bible than dont’s. If we’d do the do’s, we wouldn’t have time to do the don’ts. And compassion toward others is a big part of the do’s. Many of us ignore the “social justice” stuff in the Bible and only pay attention to rules of personal behavior. But Jesus was all about helping the poor, the sick, and the unlovable. If we are unwilling to help others in need, all the rules we kept will mean nothing at the Judgment.
42“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.
Again Jesus stresses the same point. The Pharisees were so meticulous in their tithing, they would count out individual leaves and seeds in their gardens to give a tenth to God. That’s admirable, but what had they left out? They did not show others justice and the love of God. We shouldn’t neglect our tithe, and frankly, I’m shocked at how many who consider themselves Christians do just that. But if we tithe but don’t show the love of God to others, will tithing save us?
43“Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
44“Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.”
The Pharisees were divas. They loved getting attention and flattery, and being thought of as righteous. Can you think of anyone in your church like that? It’s easy for those of us on the platform on Sundays to fall into that trap. In Judaism, if you touched a grave, even without knowing it, you were ceremonially unclean for 7 days (Numbers 19:16). For that reason, Jews of that time would always clearly mark graves, usually by whitewashing them so they could be easily avoided. Rather than being the spiritual examples they thought they were, the Pharisees were actually defiling those who came into contact with them, like an unmarked grave would. We need to be careful that our lives match our image, especially if we are in positions of spiritual leadership.
45One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.”
46Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.
The expert in the law would have been better off keeping his mouth shut. I can just picture Jesus, after this guy objects to what he is saying, looking at him like, “Oh, you want some too?” The experts in the Mosaic law had added so many ridiculous rules to the actual law of Moses that it was impossible for anyone to get through a day without breaking some rule or other. I quote here from David Guzik’s commentary:
For example, they taught that on the Sabbath, a man could not carry something in his right hand or in his left hand, across his chest or on his shoulder. But you could carry something with the back of your hand, with your foot, with your elbow, or in your ear, your hair, or in the hem of your shirt, or in your shoe or sandal.
They had made it impossible for people to live lives without guilt, even if they observed the scriptures and made their sacrifices for sin. Have you ever had the feeling, when pulled over by a police officer, that even if you were obeying the law to the best of your knowledge, they could find something to give you a ticket for if they wanted to? The experts in the law made all Jews feel that way all of the time.
47“Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. 48So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. 49Because of this, God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.’ 50Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, 51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day erected monuments to the prophets of old, but persecuted the prophets of their own day, like John the Baptist and Jesus. The rejection of the prophets through the ages culminated in their rejection of Jesus, which brought down judgment on the whole nation when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D. Jesus would illustrate this in his parable of the tenants. The age of law was about to give way to the age of grace, but no one could see that but Jesus.
52“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”
53When Jesus left there, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, 54waiting to catch him in something he might say.
The scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the law played a central role in the plot to kill Jesus. Within one generation of the crucifixion of Jesus, the temple was destroyed, and the whole house of cards that the Pharisees and their cohorts had set up came crashing down. But the worst thing they did was hinder others from knowing God. If we are more focused on rules than people, and don’t live lives that are as holy as they appear on the outside, we too hinder those who look to us as examples from knowing God.
admin Bible Jesus, Luke, Pharisees