How we slip into Phariseeism

Most Christians simply ignore the Pharisees in the New Testament. I know I did for many years. Whenever I was reading those numerous passages where Jesus confronted the Pharisees, I just figured I’m not like them, so I’d read on. But eventually I began to notice that, whenever Jesus was confronting them, he was challenging me as well. He was confronting the Pharisee in me! Wow, that felt uncomfortable!

As I began to see more pharisaic tendencies in my own life, I felt I needed to study them more closely. And what I discovered amazed me. Did you know that most of the Pharisees in Jesus’ time were passionate about following God faithfully? That’s unnerving for Christians who care about serving Christ! But if we trace their history, they actually descended from a great revival just a few generations earlier, right after the Jewish exiles returned from Babylon.

There is not enough space here to tell of their incredible commitment, zeal, courage, and even martyrdom. That revival was simply amazing. But how did they move from a revival four centuries before Christ, to being hypocritical, judgmental, self-righteous Pharisees by the time of Christ? And how can you and I avoid the same downhill slide?

Their error was simple, but slippery. They reasoned like this:

If we don’t want to disobey God again like our forefathers did (we know that’s why they went into captivity in Babylon), then we need to be really, really careful to follow God’s commands. In fact, we don’t even want to come close to disobeying! So, let’s “build a fence” of extra rules to keep us further from the edge of disobedience. Let’s be extra cautious!

And so, they began adding extra, man-made rules to God’s commands. They called it putting a “hedge” around the Torah (God’s law). If we love God and want to obey him, then why not be extra cautious? Sounds reasonable enough. So that’s what they did.

For example, take the Sabbath commandment. God set up the Sabbath as a day for his people to enjoy. But the Pharisees missed the point of it, focused instead on the rule, and then began adding extra precautions. If you shouldn’t work, then you shouldn’t harvest your fields. So don’t even harvest a little bit. So one Sabbath day, Jesus and his disciples picked a few heads of grain for lunch, and the Pharisees jumped all over them for it. Jesus rebuked them; their man-made rule was simply wrong (Matthew 12:1-13).

Later Jesus challenged the Pharisees for all their man-made rules in general, because it always led them off the point of what God intended. He said, “Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3, NIV) It’s as if we’re afraid God’s commands aren’t quite enough, and so we have to add more in order to improve on what God has done, so that our spiritual life will be stronger. Do we see how ridiculous that thinking is?

Yet many of us Christians make the same mistake. We start adding just a few rules, or a favorite doctrinal idea, well thought out (of course) and with good intentions. But then we begin paying more attention to our rules than the ones God has given (yes, I did this too). We begin forming opinions about other Christians and churches and groups on the basis of our favorite man-made rules and ideas that we have added on top of God’s Word. And pretty soon, we start thinking we are more spiritual or more faithful to God than others who don’t fit our ideas or rules. We are faithful and so they must be compromising! And then—look in the mirror—I have become self-righteous, proud, and judgmental. There is some Pharisee in me!

So that is where the Pharisees first began turning away from God and his Word ever so slightly, and it opened the door to many other errors.

More on this in future blogs!

Meanwhile, you can check out other topics on the right side of your screen here, and post your own comments below (to post comments, just sign in to Google—there is no cost and they will never give out your email address without your permission).

Here are a couple questions to get you thinking:

How have you been “turned off” or hurt by hypocrisy, judgmentalism, or self-righteous pride among Christians and churches?

What experiences have you had in encountering Phariseeism in the church, in others, or in yourself?

What experiences have you had with those who add man-made rules to what God has given us?

A Pharisee in Me! (and other topics forthcoming)

I was really surprised, some years back, to discover that I was like the Pharisees in some ways. I was a pastor at the time, and very committed to my Christian faith (I still am, but I dropped the pat answers and some of my other baggage along the way). So I was shocked to find that I might be like those guys! After all, the Pharisees were the notorious bad guys of the New Testament. Every time you turn around, Jesus was confronting them on one thing or another. They were guilty of hypocrisy, judgmentalism, and self-righteous pride. But did you know:

(1) The Pharisees were guilty of at least a dozen other, more subtle errors that I've pinpointed so far, and that are common among Christians today (in all denominations). I know, because I've fallen into most of them myself at one time or another!

(2) Most of the Pharisees were passionate about following God faithfully, and they thought they were serving him well. In fact, they developed out of a great revival movement a few centuries before Christ. How did they go so far downhill in just a few generations? And how can we avoid taking the same trip?

I am currently finishing up a book on this subject, for which I hope to find a publisher soon. Meanwhile, I will post some of my findings here over the next few weeks and months.

We'll cover some other topics that interest me too (and of course, whatever topics it triggers in your minds along the way, too). For example, I am intrigued with the "tough questions of faith," like:

• How do we handle what appear to be discrepancies in the Bible? And can we really trust the Bible?
• How do we reconcile the differences between what the Bible teaches and the deep-seated values of our culture?
• How do we understand the Bible and Christian theology in the light of the developments in thought from modernism to postmodernism?
• How do we worship God today in fresh and meaningful ways while also having a sense of continuity with the past (yet without just copying tradition)?
• How can we reconcile some of the differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestant beliefs?
• A special focus on support for those (spiritual outsiders, members, and even pastors) who have been hurt by churches. Help given here from one formerly hurting pastor!
• And in another vein, what about death and dying, and other items of interest in hospice (since I am also a hospice chaplain). Hospice, where we take another look at what matters most in the last chapter of our earthly life!

For these and other topics, stay tuned. And give me your feedback! Let's make this a dialogue. And until I get more topics posted, you can learn more by checking out my web site at http://www.waynehobbes.com/. I will soon be revising the web site and making it more user friendly (right now it's sort of a resume website for publishers) over the next few weeks. So stay tuned for that update, and you can also find a contact email address for me there.

Until then, let's be
Taking Another Look at Matters of Faith!

Always thinking,
Wayne Hobbes
Pittsburgh, Pa.

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