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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for January 15, 2010
“Pharisee Swallows Camel”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
So you read about the Pharisees in the Bible, but who were those guys? And what lessons can we learn from them?
Well the Pharisees were sort of like a religious club. Warren Wiersbe says there were about 6,000 of them in Jesus’ day, and they were mostly middle-class businessmen.
The word Pharisee comes from a word that means “to separate.” The Pharisees prided themselves in being separate from the Gentiles, and from the less orthodox Jews.
And they basically created their own code of ethics, their own rules of conduct, and tacked them onto the Law of Moses. It was a lot of hoops to jump through, and that helped keep the group elite. Only the most special, the most “godly,” were Pharisees.
So why did they have such an adversarial relationship with Jesus?
Well Jesus summed a lot of it up in Matthew 23:24. He called them “blind guides” and said, “You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”
That’s sort of like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It’s missing the forest for the trees. The Pharisees were a textbook case of missing the big picture. They focused on what was less important and often missed what was truly important.
Now listen to what Jesus said in Luke 11:52. He said, “…you have taken away the key to knowledge.”
If true knowledge was locked up, and you thought the Pharisees would unlock it for you, you’d be wrong. The Pharisees would actually keep you from finding true knowledge.
And one more sweeping statement Jesus said about them. In Luke 12 He told His disciples, “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” How were they hypocrites? Jesus said in Matthew 23, “…they do not practice what they preach.”
So the Pharisees were not exactly good role models, but we can learn some important lessons from their mistakes.
The biggest lesson, I think, is making the main thing the main thing. At one point they asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” And Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’”
So that’s the big picture, love God and love people. We can measure all we do and think against that standard. Is it loving God and loving people?
But what did the Pharisees love? Luke 16:14 says the Pharisees loved money. And Luke 11:42 says they loved the “most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.”
Yes, they did a lot of things that looked godly, but they didn’t do them out of love for God or people. They did them to look good and be important.
In Matthew 23 Jesus said, “Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’”
They were all about exalting themselves, but what did Jesus say? “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
So that’s another lesson we can learn from the Pharisees. Instead of thinking of ways we can exalt ourselves, we need to work on truly humbling ourselves.
The Pharisees constantly focused on what they looked like on the outside, because that’s what people can see. They wanted to look good and look religious to other people. But the heart is what’s important! Once again they missed the big picture.
Jesus told them, “You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee!” And He added, “You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
Yes, Jesus had a real problem with the Pharisees!
And one of His major problems with them was their lack of love for people. For example, they were all concerned about eating out of ritualistically clean dishes, but Jesus basically said, instead of getting all hung up about the outside of the dish, how about giving some of the food inside the dish to the poor?
Their little rules missed the bigger rule of love. For example, they condemned Jesus for healing hurting people on the Sabbath.
And they criticized Jesus for eating with unclean people. But Jesus said those were exactly the people He was trying to reach! He compared it to going after lost sheep, and told of all the rejoicing that takes place in heaven when even one sinner repents.
Yes, there are many lessons we can learn from the Pharisees.
We need to be humble before God instead of proud before people.
We need to check ourselves for hypocrisy, making sure we practice what we preach.
And we need to keep the main thing the main thing, bring everything back to the two great commandments: love God and love people.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
© 2010 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision Apples of Gold as arrows, tips dipped in the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God (Rev. 22:1), sailing toward the hearts and minds of men and women around the world.
Doug Apple
General Manager - Wave 94
Christian Radio for Tallahassee
PO Box 4105
Tallahassee, FL 32315
(850) 926-8000
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