Knowing The Word in Luke 11:37-54, Woes to the Pharisees and Lawyers

Have you ever acted morally superior to someone over something that ultimately is meaningless? At the time of Jesus there was a man-made rule followed by the Pharisees in the interest of ceremonial purity that before eating, water was poured over the hands to remove defilement contracted by contact with the sinful world. The Pharisees were concerned with what one does. Jesus is concerned with who one is. Jesus wants a right inward attitude. We must give from our hearts and not make outward gestures for show. No amount of water can make up for a corrupted inward life. When we concentrate on the trivial, we overlook the important. Our attitude to God controls all our actions. The Pharisees loved being in the public eye, sitting in prominent and distinctive seats, and being addressed respectfully in public and shown deference.

The Pharisees believed to come into contact with a grave was to incur ceremonial defilement. Even walking over an unmarked grave made one unclean. The Pharisees required the people to do difficult things but did not help them. They lacked love while majoring on judging others. They should have expounded on the law in such a way as to inspire and help the people, not burden them. They supposedly honored the heroes of the faith by constructing monuments to them while ignoring the living. It is always easier to honor the dead saints than living ones! Instead of opening up the treasure of God’s word, they have turned the Bible into a book of obscurities and a bundle of riddles only they could understand and explain to the people. They have prevented ordinary people who want to know and understand God.

37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. 38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.

42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”

45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” 46 And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. 52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

53 As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.

Prayer: May God himself, the God of peace, make us holy in every part; and keep us sound in spirit, soul, and body, without fault when our Lord Jesus Christ comes. He who calls us is to be trusted: he will do it. For ecstasy of the body, for exchange of mind, and for unity of the spirit in love, praise God.

Daphne Fraser