Matthew Chapter 23

Matthew Chapter 23

Then Jesus spoke to the multitude and his disciples telling them the scribes and Pharisees are sitting in Moses’ seat.    Because of that, whatever they ask you to see and do, you shouldn’t do. For they say but they don’t do.  They bind heavy burdens and grief to lay them on men’s shoulders, but they ehemselves won’t carry these burdens.  They do their works just for man to see; they show their Phylacteries (a black case with bible verses inside) and wear their fancy clothes.  They love the higher up rooms of the feast, and the chief seats in the synagogues.

 

People call to them in the markets, Rabbi! Rabbi! But don’t you be called Rabbi, because Christ is your master, and all of you are brothers.  And don’t call any man on earth your father, because your one father is in heaven. Our father, Beth and my dad, may well be in heaven, he died, so we can totally follow that but I certainly called him dad while he was alive.  He had a very particular speech about it, how he insisted that to us, his children, his name was Daddy or Dad!  And the dude had a point, it’s about respect, and love, it’s an honorary title.

Nor should you call anyone Master, because there is only one master, Christ.

Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.  But woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You shut the kingdom of heaven form people, you won’t enter you don’t even put up with those who will enter.  You devour widows houses, under the pretence of making a long prayer, therefore you will be damned. You go over land and sea to make one convert and make him twice as fit for hell as you are.  Wait, why is he twice as fit for hell?  Just for converting?  And converting from what religion?  Does that matter to you?  And Christianity we call folks who do that missionaries.

You blind guides, you say, if you swear by the temple you are nothing, but really if you swear by the gold of the temple you are a debtor! You blind fools, which is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctified the gold?  Whoever will swear by the alter is nothing, but whoever swears by the gift upon it is guilty.  Which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctified the gift.

 

Whoever swears by the altar swears by all the things on the altar, and you swears by the temple, swears by all of those within the temple,  and he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by the one who sits on that throne.

   

Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!, You pay tithes of mint, anise and cumin, but ignore the important matters of law, judgment, mercy and faith.  You should have done these things, and collected the spices!

You blind guide, who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.  What?  I don’t know that saying.  I think it means he’s a liar, who can’t even handle a gnat but claims to be able to swallow a camel.  But I don’t know.

Woe to you scribes and  Pharisees, hypocrites, because you clean the outside of the cup and platter but inside they are full of extortion and excess. You are supposed to wash the inside first, so you can wash the outside. You are like sepulchres, pretty tombs, lovely on the outside but full of dead and disease.  You appear to be righteous men, but on the inside you are hypocrites and wicked.

Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, you built the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous!  You say that if you has lived back in the day you wouldn’t have murdered the prophets, but understand that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets.  You are as bad as your fathers.  You serpents, you vipers, how can you escape being damned to hell?

I send you prophets, and wise men, and scribes, and you kill some of them and crucify, and some of them you curse in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city. All of the righteous blood shed will come upon you, from the righteous able, to the blood of Zacharias, who you killed between the temple and altar.  All of these things will fall upon this generation!

  

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you kill the prophets, and stone the people who are sent to you, how often I would gather your children together, like a hen with her chicks under her wings, and you would not.  Your house has left you desolate.  You won’t see me again until you say “Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord”

At this point, after that speech, I imagine the scribes and Pharisees just said good.  We won’t ever have to see you again.  I will work my hardest never to utter that phrase.  Man oh man, JC is pissed off!  I don’t know what this guy expects form people, but as my mom always tells me, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  I think poor JC was cracking.