Matthew 23:13-24

Matthew 23:13-24 (Part 1 of Matthew 23:13-36)

Read Matthew 23:13-36 Jesus denounces the scribes and the Pharisees for their hypocrisy

In Matthew 23:13-36, Jesus pronounces 7 woes upon the scribes and Pharisees.  The word usually translated “woe” has a meaning that communicates sorrow as well as anger.  Wiliam Barclay tells us, “There is righteous anger here, but it is the anger of the heart of love, broken by the stubborn blindness of men” (Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2, p. 318).  Jesus is speaking these stern words of judgment with a heavy heart.

Part 1

Verses 13-14

It is not surprising that, of all the groups that opposed Jesus, Matthew retains this denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, because those were the two groups that lived on after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and opposed the work of Christian communities such as Matthew’s that included both Jews and Gentiles.

What is the first thing Jesus denounces the scribes and Pharisees for?

In what ways do you think they were doing that?

Are there ways that we might unintentionally block people from entering the kingdom of heaven or be an obstacle to other people’s faith?  How should we act to avoid being an obstacle to other people’s faith?

Sometimes, the problem is a desire to try to push everyone to conform to one for how to live the faith, so it may be helpful to try to avoid being controlling or judgmental.  Instead of trying to corral or force people, we can seek to love them into the kingdom of heaven.

Note: Most modern translations leave out verse 14, in which Jesus accuses the scribes and Pharisees of devouring widows’ houses.  It is not in the oldest and most reliable manuscripts of Matthew, but it is in the corresponding passage in Mark; so it may have been added by a copyist who pulled it from Mark 12:40 rather than being in the original version of Matthew.

Verse 15

What do the scribes and Pharisees do that leads to the second woe?

Judaism is not today thought of as a proselytizing religion.  However, in the 1^st century, before the destruction of Jerusalem, Jews encouraged Gentiles to join them as “god-fearers" – people who accepted the Jewish moral law and belief in one God – and Pharisees sought to convince them to convert fully to Judaism through circumcision and acceptance of the full Law with all its detailed rules regarding foods, etc.

In Matthew’s time, Pharisees wanted Christians to embrace the whole Jewish Law; so verse 15 might have resonated even more for Matthew’s readers than for Jesus’s original audience.

Every Christian denomination seeks converts.  What’s wrong with what the Pharisees were doing?

Barclay says it well: “The sin of the Pharisees was that they were not really seeking to lead men to God, they were seeking to lead men to Pharisaism” (Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2, p. 321).

In our time, how might Christians sometimes be more focused on converting people to their “side” or their flavor of Christianity than to God?

How are we vulnerable to focusing more on winning people to our “party” – our part of the body of Christ or even our political party – than to God?

One of the ways we see this happening in the United States is people putting politics before religion.  Ryan Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University, author, and American Baptist pastor, says that between 2005 and 2020, political scientists observed a “pretty significant revolution” in people’s thinking.  Previously, political scientists thought that “religion was the first lens and then politics lived downstream of religion” – i.e., that people chose their religion first and then decided how to vote based on their religious views.  But now, he says, “we recognize that politics is the master identity, and . . . that people pick their religion [or denomination or local church] based on their politics.  It’s not the other way around” (“Faith and the Faithful in the 2024 Election”).  Given that our faith should be the primary guiding light for our worldview and everything else should come second to that, this finding is troubling.

Verses 16-22

Recall from Matthew 5:33-37 (in the Sermon on the Mount) that Jews in Jesus’s time were casual about oaths, arguing that unless an oath directly invoked God it didn’t “count.”  Here, Jesus may be quoting them, or he may be using exaggeration to show the foolishness of their hypocritical hair-splitting.

What is the point of Jesus’s response to the Pharisees’ game-playing about which oaths “count” and must be honored?

Jesus is pointing out that the things they say don’t “count” – the Temple, the altar – are more important than the things they say do count.  Furthermore, in verses 20-21 he suggests that it all goes back to God, so all of it “counts.”

Perhaps the real issue here is whether you should need to swear by anything in order to assure someone that you are telling the truth or will fulfill your word.  When should people be able to count on your words being trustworthy?

What does it say about us if we are focused on when we might be able to slip out of an oath based on a technicality?

In Matthew 5:33-37, Jesus told his followers that they should never swear an oath by anything.  Should you ever need to swear an oath, other than in a court of law or official document?  Explain.

Verses 23-24

Jews were directed in the Law of Moses to tithe from the produce they harvested (Lev. 27:30-32).  Jesus indicates that the scribes and Pharisees are so zealous about collecting the whole tithe, or tithing of their entire gain, that they demand that people tithe even from their garden herbs (mint, dill, and cumin).  If you have ever owned a basil plant, imagine if an advocate of tithing asked you to give to the church one-tenth of your “harvest” of basil, besides your tithe of your income.  That’s what Jesus is criticizing here: they were trying to calculate the tithe down to the basil leaves, while ignoring more important matters.

Is there anything wrong with tithing from even your smaller gains?

In verse 23, what are the “weightier” matters of the Law that Jesus says they should be more focused on?

Jesus identifies justice, mercy, and faithfulness as “weightier” matters than the tithing of mint.  (The NABRE uses the word “judgment,” but “justice” may be a more appropriate translation that better captures the meaning of the word today.)

What does it mean to practice “justice”?

Justice means is to give to God what is due to God and to give to people what is due to them as people made in God’s image.  What does that call us to do?

What does it mean to practice “mercy”?

One way to think about mercy in a modern context is to think about the use of discretion to balance the possible harshness of strict justice.  Legal systems often ask judges to use discretion in deciding what is an appropriate way to deal with the circumstances of an individual case.

What does it mean to practice “faithfulness”?  (Note: Some translations say “faith” or “fidelity,” but in today’s language “faithfulness” probably better captures what Jesus is saying.)

Why are justice, mercy, and faithfulness “weightier” than detailed tithing?

Jesus does not reject tithing.  He says that they should focus on the weightier matters “without neglecting the others” – i.e., without neglecting tithing.  Does Jesus want us to tithe our mint and basil?  How can we balance Matthew 22:21 – where Jesus tells us to “give back to God what is God’s” – with Jesus’s overall objection to the zeal with which the Pharisees focused on details?

The Pharisees might say, “We haven’t neglected the weightier matters.  We tithe of everything because of our faithfulness to God.”  What point are they missing?

In verse 24, Jesus refers to gnats and camels.  Both are identified as “unclean” in the Law of Moses (Lev. 11:41-43 and Lev. 11:4), so Jews were supposed to avoid them.  Pious Pharisees poured their drinks through a cloth to strain out any possible gnats.

Jesus accuses them of straining the gnats out of their drinks while swallowing camels.  What is the meaning of this metaphor?

What are the “gnats” they we might become unnecessarily focused on in our day?  In other words, what are the little things we might have a tendency to focus on that don’t really matter very much in the grand scheme of our faith, but that might draw our attention away from more important things?

What are the “camels” – the big, important things – that we might be overlooking in our focus on gnats?

This could be considered personally and also societally.  Societally, we might fail to address weighty matters such as hunger, homelessness, racism, etc.  Individually, we might fail to address issues such as paying fairly those who work for us, avoiding unkind or abusive words that hurt other people, doing our fair share of the chores, showing mercy to other people when they are not perfect, etc.  You can probably add good examples of your own.

Throughout this denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus repeatedly calls them “hypocrites” (see verses 13, 15, 23 ,25, 27, 29).  What is a hypocrite?

“Hypocrite” is actually a Greek word.  That word was used to describe actors in the theatre.  They play a part that is not who they really are, so they are pretending to be something they are not.  The meaning of the word then expanded to the more general meaning we have for it today.  How does their behavior make it appropriate to describe them as hypocrites?

How are we at risk of falling into hypocrisy in our day?

Take a step back and consider this:

It is easy to become critical of the scribes and Pharisees and miss the ways we also put our focus in the wrong places.  It is also possible to go to the other extreme and adopt a worldview that unconsciously says that no details matter – that anything goes.  God calls us to find the balance that allows us to stay focused on justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matt. 23:23).

What are the big things that you think matter most?

What can you do to make sure you stay focused on those big things and don’t get distracted by little matters that aren’t as important?