Pharisees and Pharisaism

Jesus’s parable about the religious person and the sinner is very telling: “Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: "Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: 'I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don't cheat, I don't sin, and I don't commit adultery. I'm certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, 'O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.' I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." (Luke 18:9-14)

There was a time when I was leaving a store that, like often before, I saw people that were homeless, disabled, obese, or very unkempt. I thought, ‘Thank you God, for the blessings that you have given me (and that I am not like them).’ I immediately sensed God say in my spirit, “Don’t you dare see yourself as superior to them! Everyone has their own lot in life. You do not know what they have been through. Would you be any better if you had to deal with what they have had to deal with? I love them just as much.” I had spent a lot of effort helping a participant in our divorce ministry to not go homeless and got to know how many terrible situations some people have had in life. I had to admit that I would have probably done worse if I had gone through what they had gone through. I realized later, that I have been in some ways like the Pharisee in the scripture. I tended to look down on others that weren’t as well off as I was. The Pharisee strictly kept religious rules and traditions, and didn’t consider himself a sinner “like everyone else.” He looked down on 'sinners.' Do you see that in other Christians and even yourself? I think most Christians don’t realize that sin is sin and even though they go to church to some degree or another, they are not any less sinners. Scripture tells us to be truly humble and not to think we are superior to others. To many of us, church is sort of a nice ‘club,’ where the good people go and do the Christian show, while in truth, we should think of it more like AA or Celebrate Recovery, where everyone is a sinner that is aware of their need for help. The only difference between us and other sinners is that we recognize our need for help to this spiritual disease and that there is a spiritual answer. Like an alcoholic who has embraced the AA approach, we know that we will always have inclinations to sin and we need God and fellowship with other Christians to help us resist sin and to grow. What the Bible says and what Jesus said repeatedly must be taken seriously. One of the the biggest themes of Jesus' life and teachings was his dealing with the religious leaders of the day, particularly the Pharisees. In over two dozen occasions he had interactions with them, including in John 5, 7, and 8, starting with anger that he healed on the Sabbath and a series of other confrontations. Even a lot of believers ultimately wanted to stone him.

His main theme in his interactions with the Pharisees was condemnation for them for legalism, pride, hypocrisy, and so forth and their lack of truly knowing God and recognizing him as God's son. After many hours studying the Pharissees and the other religious leaders who were against Jesus, the simplest way I can describe them is that they were focused on Jewish rules , including those things they had added to the rules, but they completely lost the spirit of the law by ignoring the most important things. What were the most important things? Love God/Jesus, justice (which in the Bible usually meant justice for the marginalized people), mercy (which is 'forgiveness, withholding judgement, and compassion for those who have come up short in some way') and have faithfulness (steady following of God/Jesus). It wasn't a mistake that God had the amount of times those interactions and how long Jesus talked about them in the Bible. He meant to send a message for that generation and all generations to come. That is a message that would resonate from their day right up, through the hypocritical and sometimes corrupt formal Catholic days, to our day. It's a mistake to dismiss the scriptures about the Pharisees as "oh that's something that was just in their day and doesn't really have much impact on us." I believe that Jesus was showing love and justice when he rebuked the religious leaders. Most of all he was showing love to the people and to us by making clear the danger of not having the God's love in them. Also, like God, he hated the evil that they represented. In John 5:42, he says: “Your approval means nothing to me, because I know you don’t have God’s love within you."  We need to seriously consider what God saying through this theme. In summary, a key message for us from these scriptures is Love God and having the God's love in you, practice mercy, be for justice, and have faithfulness. Finally, in midst of all the hatefulness and hate in from the Pharisees, his direct message to them was:

"Jesus said to the people who believed in him, You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:31-32 PROBLEMS WITH JEWISH LEADERS: John 8:12-30, John 8::31-59, Luke 11:42, Matthew 12:38-42, Matthew 19:3-9, Mark 12:13-17, Matthew 22:34-40, Luke 7:30-33, Luke 7:36-50, Luke 19:37-40, Luke 20:1-8, Luke 20:19-26, John 8:1-10, Mathew 22:41-46, Mark 12:38-40, Mark 12:41-44, Matthew 12:1-8, Matthew 12:9-14, Luke 14:1-14, Mark 7:1-13, Luke 13:10-17, Luke 13:31-33, Luke 12:1-3, Matthew 5:20, Matthew 16:6-12, Matthew 21:33-47, Matthew 23:1-35, Luke 16:1-15, Luke 18:9-14, Matthew 9:2-7, Matthew 10:9-13, Matthew 9:32-34, John 5:31-32, Mark 12:18-24    

The End of Your Life

We naturally tend to base our happiness on our circumstances. But most of us will face tragedies in our life and very ‘bad’ circumstances as we get towards the end of it. Scripture says that we can face bad circumstances with joy (James 1:2). It sounds crazy! Is it really possible? It can only happen when your life is centered on God, not circumstances or other gods. It is not easy. No one is instantly a fully mature Christian. It takes time to get in sync with God, leave pseudo gods and mistaken beliefs and pursue/grow to love him wholeheartedly and others as yourself. But Jesus promises it to be ‘a rich and satisfying (abundant) life’ (John 10:10).

Are We More Unified Than We Think?

We all know of the many denominations and divisions within Christianity. One of the biggest impediments to unity within the church universal, is too much a tendency to emphasize differences on 'lesser things' that are matters of interpretation or emphasis. We need to recognize the key things that unite us, as laid out in scripture. For the sake of unity, we need to be able to say, “I have differences with you on thus and such, but we are still brother/sisters in Christ. We want to help each other to grow more into authentic Christians.

The early church had some churches getting off base in their theology, and church leaders wanted to unify the theology through creeds. The Nicene Creed is one of the oldest (325 A.D., revised in 381 A.D.) and is based on scripture. The others are similar with some relatively minor differences. Nowadays, we have tens of thousands of denominations in the U.S., many of which think their way is the ‘right’ way. Here's the thing, most Bible-believing denominations and churches are in total agreement with the the first two overarching commandments of Jesus (on which "the entire law and the demands of the prophets are based"), as in the "Key Themes of Jesus" on this site. Also, perhaps the best universally accepted statements (theology) of the core beliefs of Christianity are the early creeds, such as the Nicene Creed, below. These Creeds are Biblically-based theology and designed by the majority of church leaders to combat the tendencies of some of the every-expanding churches to go astray in their beliefs.

So, consider this, we hold arguably hold the overarching heart of Christianity in common! The problem is that the more we start focusing on other things, the more we become divided and drift from the emphasis on the most important things. We Americans seem to tend towards judging others and considering ourselves and/or 'our group' as superior. This was true before the Twin Towers came down on 9/11. However, a lot of that division went away for quite awhile. We realized that we had a shared greater uniting thing - each other and our country. That is what we need within the church (come to think of it we also need it in our country again also).

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us men and for our salvation

he came down from heaven:

by the power of the Holy Spirit

he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

(Note that “catholic” in this means universal and it was the true universal church started by the Apostles at the time this was written.) This text is based on the Nicene Creed approved by church leaders in 385 A.D. While the other early well-known creeds are a bit different in wording, they substantially are very similar to each other. Nevertheless the creeds do not cover the vital aspect of personal acceptance and relationship with God and the key teachings of Jesus that are on this website.