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Donald Trump, his daughter Ivanka says, reads the newspapers and cuts out articles about everyday Americans in difficulty whom he can help.
What follows are only a few examples of his generosity. There are more. Few people know about these acts of kindness and compassion. However, those who think he is mean and nasty might be interested in this:
In 1986, Trump gave $20,000 to stave off foreclosure of the Hill family farm in Georgia. Mr Hill was so distraught over the possible loss of the farm, which had been in his family for three generations, that he committed suicide. He thought that by doing so, his family would receive his life insurance benefit. Of course, insurance companies do not pay out on suicides. A wealthy Atlanta businessman, Frank Argenbright, arranged for a press conference for Hill's widow Annabel to explain her plight and the intransigence of the bank where the mortgage was held. Incredibly, the press conference was covered on national news. Trump's then-wife Ivana — mother of Ivanka, Don Jr and Eric — saw it on television and implored her husband to help. Trump did so and held a mortgage-burning ceremony in Trump Tower two days before Christmas, with Mrs Hill and Mr Argenbright in attendance. Mr and Mrs Hill's daughter recounts the story from her mother's journal, complete with photos:
In 1991, in Manhattan, Trump halted a vicious mugging involving a baseball bat. At the time, he, his then-wife Marla Maples — mother of Tiffany Trump — and another couple were on their way to a pop concert. The photo of the New York Daily News article comes courtesy of Epoch Times, which has more on the story:
Several years ago, Maury Povich, who has his own television talk show, got in touch with Trump — a close personal friend — to help a little girl who has bone disease and her mother. Trump apparently responded most generously, because Povich asked the child if she could count all the zeroes on the cheque:
In the following video, Jerry Falwell Jr discusses four more of Trump's charitable acts: financing a new church ministry, keeping a basketball tournament in Harlem alive, paying off the mortgage of a couple who helped him when his limo broke down and keeping two businesses in a small town alive after a local manufacturing plant moved to Mexico:
Falwell reminds all of us that we shall be known by the fruits of our faith. Trump, he says, exhibits these in these acts of charity, done quietly.
He says these fruits of faith are more important than knowing that it's 'Second Corinthians' rather than 'Two Corinthians', as Trump had said at church in Kansas during primary season.
May God continue to bless Donald Trump and his family in these perilous times.
America really is in a war right now between Good and Evil.
Some Christians do not realise that they have been watching and listening to too much Big Media.
Even atheists and agnostics can sense that something powerful beyond their comprehension is happening in the United States during this election cycle. Why can't churchgoers?
My past two posts give more reasons to vote Trump: Evangelicals and politics and The Rowboat.
Monty Pelerin, who devotes his site to economics, politics and investing, published an excellent piece from an unknown author on October 17.
I'll begin by giving you most of the anonymous copy first, followed by the link (emphases mine throughout):
This may be the best and most honest political promotion statement you will ever read. It decidedly does not brush objections aside.
You hate Hillary? READ it.
You hate Trump? READ it.
You think there's no choice? READ it. And, read it with your grown-up hat on.
We've all been dealt huge responsibility with this election. The first step toward accepting responsibility is accepting it, and the first step toward accepting it is recognizing it.
READ THIS. Read every single word. It'll take you about three minutes. Be sure to read to the end (take a few minutes and read all of it!) …
A Message For Christians About Donald Trump
Here's a famous joke about God and how he talks to us.
"A deeply faithful Christian man is stuck on roof at home with massive flooding up to the 2nd floor. Rowboat comes. He says "No, I'm waiting for God. I prayed and I know he's coming." 2nd Rowboat. "No, I'm waiting for God." 3rd Rowboat. "No, I'm waiting for God."
Water rises. The man drowns. Now he's meeting God in heaven. The religious man says, "Where were you God? I prayed. I was faithful. I asked you to save me. Why would you abandon me?"
God says, "Hey, I sent you 3 rowboats."
Did you ever consider Trump is our rowboat?
Maybe God is trying to tell us something important–that now is not the time for a "nice Christian guy" or a "gentleman" or a typical Republican powder puff. Maybe now is the time for a natural born killer, a ruthless fighter, a warrior. Because right about now we need a miracle, or America is finished. Maybe the rules of gentlemen don't apply here. Maybe a gentleman and "all-around nice Christian" would lead us to slaughter.
Or do you want another Mitt Romney, Bob Dole, John McCain, Gerald Ford or Paul Ryan? Did any of them win? Did they lead the GOP to "the promised land?" Did they change the direction of America ? No, because if you don't win, you have no say.
Paul Ryan couldn't even deliver his own state, Wisconsin! And as leader of the House, Paul Ryan rolls over to Obama like my dog rolls over for a scrap of food, or a steak bone. Nice, but obedient. I mean Paul Ryan…not my dog. My dog is actually a pretty good defender and loyal.
Maybe God is knocking on your door loudly, but you're not listening. Maybe God understands we need a "war leader" at this moment in time. Maybe God understands if we don't win this election, America is dead. It's over. The greatest nation in world history will be gone. Finished. Kaput. Adios.
And with one last breath, maybe what we need to save us at the last second, is someone different. Someone you haven't ever experienced before– because you weren't raised in rough and tumble New York where nothing good gets accomplished unless you're combative, aggressive, outrageous, on offense at all times, and maybe just a tad arrogant too.
Someone with a personality you've never seen on stage at your church. Maybe, just maybe, being a nice gentlemanly Christian would not beat Hillary and her billion dollars, and her best friends in the media who will unleash the dogs of hell upon the GOP nominee.
I guess you think God is only nice and gentlemanly. Really? Then you've missed the whole point of the Bible. When necessary, God is pretty tough. When necessary, God strikes with pain, death and destruction. When necessary, God inflicts vengeance.
Maybe you think God couldn't possibly be associated with someone like Trump. Trump is too vicious, rude and crude.
When we won WWII, was God "nice"? Were we gentlemanly when defeating Hitler? Were we gentlemanly when firebombing Germany? Were we gentlemanly when dropping atomic bombs on Japan ? Is God ever "nice" on the battlefield? Or does he send us vicious SOB's like General George S. Patton so the good guys can defeat evil?
It's pretty clear to me God sends unique people to be "war leaders." That's a different role than a pastor or church leader. God understands that.
And maybe it's time to re-define "nice." Maybe Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan aren't nice at all–because they led us to defeat. And losing again would mean the end of America. And God can't allow that. Maybe Romney and Ryan mean well, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Or maybe they're just jealous they had their chance and blew it. Maybe they'd rather help elect Hillary than allow a Trump victory that would make them look weak, feckless and incompetent.
"Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint." (Isaiah 40:30-31)
God is about miracles. We don't need a "nice guy" or a "gentleman" right now. It's the 4th quarter and we're losing 14-0. We need a miracle.
So let me repeat my message to Christians: "YOU'RE MISSING THE BOAT."
I believe Trump is our miracle. I believe Trump is our rowboat. Except he's more like a battleship!
No one is saying Trump is perfect. No one is saying Trump is a perfect conservative. But he is a patriot. He is a warrior. He is a capitalist. He is the right man, at the right time. Yes, he's a bit rude and crude and offensive. But that may make him the perfect warrior to save America, American exceptionalism, capitalism and Judeo-Christian values. The choice should be easy for Christians.
It's Trump…or it's the end of the American dream.
If anything in this article strikes a positive chord with you, please pass it on.
It is interesting that Monty Pelerin introduced 'Trump as a Rowboat in a Storm' as follows:
I am not a particularly religious person so I debated about posting this "Trump as Rowboat."
We are doomed continuing the way we are.
Why voting for Trump is the right thing to do:
Both established parties will be against Trump if he is elected. That in itself validates him in the minds of the millions disgusted with government. That also ensures that he will not be able to get away with things that Obama has and Hillary will.
Donald Trump cannot be any worse than Obama or Hillary. In fact, he will be great by comparison. He has plans to clean up government at all levels. He will do his best to revive American industry — in America. He will defend Christianity. He also has a godly vice president in Mike Pence.
So, as Trump himself says, 'What do you have to lose?' Nothing. Nothing at all.
In fact, Americans have everything to gain from a Donald Trump presidency. I suspect the world does, too.
He is a negotiator, not a warmonger. He comes in peace, ready to serve his country.
(Image credit: The Conservative Treehouse)
A reader of The Conservative Treehouse wrote a lengthy and interesting perspective on Evangelicals who despise politics except during times of revival.
The man points out that, because the United States is not currently in a state of religious revival, the needle is not moving, so to speak, for some diehard no-politics-for-me Protestants.
Excerpts from his comment follow, emphases mine. I have also corrected a couple of spelling errors.
First, on Evangelicals and politics:
I have written on this subject before last year about Evangelicals. Evangelicals don't get involved in politics. When I say Evangelicals I mean not just those that can name the church they go to on Christmas and Easter, but those who find their identity in their Christian faith. Those that would say they have a relationship with God. When someone becomes an Evangelical one of the first things that happens is a loss of interest in their prior life and worldly things. They prioritize their life. God first, then family, then their local church, then work and career, then national loyalty, and last politics. You hear this when Pence talks and also in Cruz. When most Evangelicals think about politics they look down at it from their higher priorities. It is like a Christian going back to their old life. There is a disgust to it and those involved in it. This is a state of a immature Christian. It is good to reject your old life. But you must still see that God is involved in all things. He is Lord of all. Christ is Lord of your personal faith, your family, your church, your work, your country, and your politics. Where ever you are God is there. But not many Christians and Evangelicals mature to that level …
So barring another ''Great Awakening" we have to work on one Evangelical or Christian at a time.
Just so. If we were not meant to be politically aware, we would not be praying for our respective governments and their leaders at church.
I cannot speak for all denominations but clergy at Catholic and mainline Protestant churches offer a prayer on Sunday (and weekday) services for our political leaders. Therefore, if politics is so distasteful and worldly — it could be respectable — we would not be praying for those people in church.
Now a few words about Donald Trump:
Interestingly, I do see some good signs in Mr. Trump himself. Early on in this movement of Trump Christians have been praying for him and ministers have been surrounding him. The Trump we see now is not the Trump of, say, three years ago. There is a change in him and God is testing him. We may see a large revival yet. It is hard to say what causes revivals except God. But if God is working in Trump he may be working in this movement.
Yes, I do believe Trump has changed from June 2015. He hasn't been around clergy this often since his days with Norman Vincent Peale.
I do think that God is blessing Donald Trump with the strength and the voice to give two or three rallies per day with truth and enthusiasm. I do believe that God is keeping him and his family out of harm's way. I also believe that Donald Trump's candidacy is no accident; it was meant to happen in 2016.
Furthermore, I can think of no candidate who could have borne the relentless, daily slings and arrows from Democrats, the GOPe and Big Media like Donald Trump.
Finally, I believe — unlike other serious churchgoers I know, whether Evangelical, mainline Protestant or Catholic — that this year's presidential election is one of spiritual warfare rather than politics.
In a choice between Good and Evil, there is only one option on November 8.
(Image credit: The Conservative Treehouse)
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn't tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today's reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
This is the fourth of seven woes — judgements — that Jesus pronounces on the scribes and Pharisees.
Previous posts discuss the first and second woes as well as the third (continued here).
The fourth woe concerns their being more interested in the minutiae of observing the tithes of herbs and seeds rather than God's greater laws of justice, mercy and faithfulness (verse 23). Jesus rebukes them for not observing both.
The parallel verse is Luke 11:42:
"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.
Jesus also related the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, involving a Pharisee who boasted of tithing all that he possessed (Luke 18:9-14).
The command to give tithes of herbs and seeds to God is stated in Deuteronomy 14:22:
"You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year.
It was easier for the Pharisees to enhance their reputations by placing great weight on crop and seed tithes rather than exhort themselves and the faithful to love their neighbour. The same is true today of some churches where legalism takes priority over mercy and compassion.
Another aspect, as Matthew Henry surmises, is that the Pharisees got some sort of self-enhancement by exacting tithes:
it is probable that they had ends of their own to serve, and would find their own account in it for the priests and Levites, to whom the tithes were paid …
John MacArthur tells us that tithes continue in Judaism, although they are no longer of the same nature as in the Old Testament.
However, where the Church is concerned, tithing is not obligatory (emphases mine):
… the tithe is mentioned six times in the New Testament. Three times in the gospels and each time it is mention in the text condemning the abuse of it by the scribes and the Pharisees. Three times in the book of Hebrews when it simply reaches back and describes its historical reality in the history of Israel. At no time is it ever mentioned in the New Testament as binding on the church. It had to do with taxation of the national government of Israel.
That cannot be emphasised enough. Churchgoers do not have to tithe. Nor should they be required to do so.
Verse 24 is one I have wondered about all my life. Before explaining its meaning, it is worth pointing out that Jesus once more called the scribes and Pharisees 'blind guides' — spiritually blind leaders of the faithful. They were false teachers actively leading their people to perdition, hence the seven woes.
Previously, Jesus made a previous reference to them as 'blind guides' in verse 16, as 'blind fools' in verse 17 and as 'blind men' in verse 19.
What was Jesus speaking of when He rebuked them for 'straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel'?
As we know, Mosaic law, which observant Jews still abide by today, forbids the consumption of certain creatures. The gnat is the least of these and the camel the greatest. This goes some way towards explaining the meaning behind the verse.
In some versions, such as the King James, the verse says 'straining at a gnat', which causes confusion for modern readers and listeners. MacArthur tells us:
"You blind guides, you strain out," it should be, "you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel." You say what in the world is this? Well, you have to understand something about this. The word strain means to filter, diulizo, filter.
In Jesus's time, the Jewish leaders were careful to remove any gnats that might have flown into their wine. MacArthur explains:
They make wine and as they're making, crushing the grapes, a little gnat is flying around, he lands in the grapes, he gets gobbled up in the grapes, winds up in the wine or maybe he just flies in the wine and lands there. So the fastidious Pharisee drank his wine like this. Then he picked the gnat off his teeth …
That made them look pious to each other and to onlookers.
What all were ignoring were the greater violations of God's law: the business (which it was) of the faithful making oaths to free themselves from observing one or more of the Ten Commandments in favour of 'tradition'. One of these was the Corban which released one from honouring one's father and mother (Mark 7:9-13), which I discussed in 2010. Here are the verses (emphases mine):
9And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' 11But you say, 'If a man tells his father or his mother, "Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban"' (that is, given to God)— 12then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do."
This is the explanation of how the Corban worked:
Jesus points out to them that they distorted the commandment of honouring one's father and one's mother. According to the Pharisees, if a child did not wish to obey that commandment, he had a get-out clause (verses 9-10). The child could swear by the gold of the temple and the gift upon the altar — the Corban — that he washed his hands of his parents (verse 11). Should his parents ask anything of him, all he had to do is say that he made his oath (verses 12 and 13).
This is what He rebuked in Matthew 23:16-19.
The Corban and similar evasions of the Commandments were what Jesus referred to as 'swallowing a camel'. It was a figurative way of saying that their tradition was a huge sin and violation of God's supreme law in favour of insistence on fine minutiae that brought them prestige. It was as bad as if they had swallowed a camel.
MacArthur gives us this interpretation of Jesus's message:
In other words, you are all confused. You're whole priority system is inverted. You're just fooling around with stuff that doesn't matter. And blind to the enormous evil that you're consuming. You're afraid to eat the tenth mint leaf and then you're allowing into your life hypocrisy, dishonesty, cruelty, greed, self-worship; incredible.
We can better understand this verse now that it has a context.
In closing, Matthew Henry reminds us of the importance of observing God's greater laws and Jesus's rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees, who cared nothing for the ordinary or destitute Jew:
Judgment and mercy toward men, and faith toward God, are the weightier matters of the law, the good things which the Lord our God requires (Micah 6:8) to do justly, and love mercy, and humble ourselves by faith to walk with God. This is the obedience which is better than sacrifice or tithe judgment is preferred before sacrifice, Isaiah 1:11. To be just to the priests in their tithe, and yet to cheat and defraud every body else, is but to mock God, and deceive ourselves. Mercy also is preferred before sacrifice, Hosea 6:6. To feed those who made themselves fat with the offering of the Lord, and at the same time to shut up the bowels of compassion from a brother or a sister that is naked, and destitute of daily food, to pay tithe-mint to the priest, and to deny a crumb to Lazarus, is to lie open to that judgment without mercy, which is awarded to those who pretended to judgment, and showed no mercy nor will judgment and mercy serve without faith in divine revelation for God will be honoured in his truths as well as in his laws.
John MacArthur concludes:
It's amazing how fastidious religious people can be and so far from the reality of what God seeks. So many false spiritual leaders reverse divine priorities, substitute insignificant forms and outward acts of religion for essential realities of the heart. You see, that's the point. So the false spiritual leaders are condemned for exclusion, perversion, subversion, inversion, how about extortion for a fifth; extortion.
This is why true Christians condemn legalism. It has no basis in Scripture. God will judge it harshly.
Next time: Matthew 23:25-26
A human heartbeat comes earlier than previously thought.
This is further evidence against the popular 'pro-choice' belief that a foetus remains a 'lump of cells' for months on end.
From Breitbart:
A study finds an unborn baby's first heartbeat occurs as early as 16 days after conception.
A research team funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) at the University of Oxford says a baby's first heartbeat is now far earlier than was previously understood, reports the Daily Mail.
The objective of the research is to help treat congenital heart disease. However, this points out how early the human foetus begins to develop.
The Daily Mail article explains that researchers (emphases mine):
have demonstrated earlier beating of the heart in mouse embryos which, if extrapolated to the human heart, suggests beating as early as 16 days after conception.
In the study, published today in the scientific journal eLife, researchers studied the developing mouse heart and found that the muscle started to contract as soon as it formed the cardiac crescent – an early stage in heart development.
In mice, this crescent forms 7.5 days after conception, which is equivalent to day 16 in the human embryo.
Previously, it was thought that the heart started to contract a stage later, when the heart appears as a linear tube.
Congenital heart disease is diagnosed in at least 1 in 180 births, which equates to around 4,000 each year or 12 babies each day, in the UK.
The researchers ultimately hope that by understanding more about how the heart forms in the womb they will one day be able to prevent heart conditions that arise as a foetus develops.
God has the development of His creatures — including mankind — planned as only He can.
We begin functioning very early. This should put a big question mark around abortion in everyone's mind.
Abortion is the taking of human life.
The ancient Jews never practised abortion. This is why it is not mentioned in the Bible.
When the early Church began to expand into Greece and the Roman Empire, provision had to be made to condemn the practice.
This is how the document known as the Didache ('did-uh-kay') came to be written. Excerpts follow from my post from 2009 (emphases mine):
There appear to be no records or treatises on abortion for social reasons prior to the ancient Greek Empire in its decline.
Hippocrates — he of the oath which doctors take — made the first mention of the procedure and instructed physicians of the day not to give an expectant mother drinks or potions fatal to the child in the womb. By the time he devised the Hippocratic Oath, social abortion was becoming more commonplace among the ancient Greeks.
Social abortion continued when the Roman Empire was in its decline. They were the first to legalise against it. The Romans ordered the mother into exile. Those involved with procuring or administering the necessary potion were exiled to an island if they were from the upper classes or sentenced to work in metal mines if they were from lower social classes.
The early fathers of the Christian Church wrote the Didache which dealt not only with abortion but also other sins, e.g. witchcraft, which were unknown to the Jews.
Author and lecturer Dr Paul L Williams explains the early opprobrium regarding abortion and how it became infused into Roman society:
'You shall not kill an unborn child or murder a newborn infant.' This equation of abortion with homicide was upheld by Tertullian, the father of Latin theology. In his treatise 'On the Veiling of Virgins' (206 A.D.), this Church father railed against women who 'conceal their sinful failures' by committing 'homicide' by means of procured abortions. In 250 A.D., St. Cyprian maintained that abortion represented a crime far worse than 'parricide'.
A century later, the Church in Spain declared abortion a sin of 'double damnation' when it was the result of fornication (pre-marital sex) or adultery. The guilty woman was forbidden from taking Holy Communion for the rest of her life, including on her deathbed.
Later penalties included those for murderers. Eventually, any society which had converted to Christianity, like the Visigoths, prohibited abortion.
But, these days, it's a legal 'right'. Some 'progressive' thinkers would like to extend that 'right' to infancy.
Very wrong. Very wrong.
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn't tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today's reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
20 So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. 22 And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.
Last week's post, which concerned Matthew 23:16-19, discussed the first part of the second woe — judgement — that Jesus pronounced on the scribes and the Pharisees.
If you haven't yet read it, those verses explain the context of today's passage.
Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees spiritually 'blind guides' and 'blind fools' for encouraging a twisted means of swearing oaths, indicating promises the faithful made at the temple which were to be kept. Their ungodly system maintained that oaths made with gifts, sacrifices and gold were more binding than those made by the altar or by the temple. This is because they wanted people to put more money in the temple coffers — with which they lined their pockets.
Last week's verses ended with this question from Jesus:
19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
He provides the answer in today's reading.
Essentially, any and all types of oath made in the temple were binding because they were made in the name of the Lord.
First, swearing by the altar is swearing by the Almighty, to whose honour the Jews created it (verse 20). An oath made by the altar cannot be disregarded or non-binding merely because the altar is an object. That was the excuse the scribes and Pharisees told the faithful to use as a get-out clause. In reality, it was all the more binding because whatever was offered on it was given to God. Therefore, someone making an oath in that manner was actually invoking God's witness to it. Matthew Henry explains:
for it was the altar of God and he that went to that, went to God, Psalm 43:4; Psalm 26:6.
Secondly, oaths made by the temple were equally binding (verse 21). The temple was God's house as it was dedicated to His service and He dwelt therein. Therefore, swearing an oath there was doing so in His name.
Thirdly, there were the oaths made by heaven (verse 22). Jesus said that these were the most sinful (Matthew 5:34-35):
But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
(I'll get to verse 35 shortly.)
Making an oath by heaven is swearing by the throne of God in His kingdom. It is the most direct type of oath made in His name.
That said, God expects anyone who makes these types of oaths to fulfil them. Otherwise, as Henry tells us:
he resents the affront done to him in the form of the oath, so he will certainly revenge the greater affront done to him by the violation of it.
Christ will not countenance the evasion of a solemn oath, though ever so plausible.
Therefore, we can better understand Matthew 5:35, which forbids any type of oath because God created earth, and Jerusalem is His holy city (Psalm 48:2).
John MacArthur explains that swearing by anything is swearing by the Almighty:
I mean, everything you touch eventually is going back to God, right? You swear by anything that represents God, a gift, an altar, the gold of the temple, the temple, the heaven of heavens, the throne of God and you're going to touch the God who fills it all.
In other words, have you forgotten that God is everywhere, as creator of all and Lord of all?
But, if you're going to make an oath, you'd better keep it, because you made it in God's name. This is why people only make one in a court of law and it is taken so seriously that to violate that oath is criminal.
As for the Pharisees and scribes telling people certain types of oaths were more binding that others, MacArthur says that Jesus was telling them:
They subverted the truth. They developed reasoning that undermined truth.
He warns that false teachers in our churches do much the same thing in different ways:
False spiritual leaders don't tell the truth folks, but they parade [piety]. Try to cover up for their lying pretense. We need to be careful of that. They subvert whole houses. They by their great covetousness, says Peter, use feigned words to make merchandise out of you. They lie. They say they need money when they don't need money. They say God told them something, when He never told them anything. They say Jesus led them into something, when He never led them into anything. They lie. Beware of those liars who are false spiritual leaders.
We have seen that happen with televangelists and faith healers who then get involved in terrible scandals. They dupe people, especially for money.
Cults and sects are also common hunting grounds for false teachers in search of naive believers.
This is yet another reason why it is so important to know and understand the Holy Bible.
Regularly praying for discernment is a great thing. The Holy Spirit is always there to help us.
This brings to mind Jesus's counsel to the Apostles when He sent them out on their trial ministry (Matthew 10:16):
"Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
Be nice, be good but be careful.
Next time: Matthew 23:23-24
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn't tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today's reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
16 "Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.' 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.' 19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
Last week's entry discussed the first of the seven woes that Jesus pronounced on the scribes and Pharisees for their ungodly, false teaching which prevented people from entering the kingdom of heaven.
In today's passage, Jesus takes them to task for their — not Scripture's — tradition on oaths. It was called the Corban, which means 'given to God' and involved a gift or sacrifice on the altar of the temple.
Jesus criticised the Corban (Mark 7:9-13), which I discussed in 2010. Here are the verses (emphases mine):
9And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' 11But you say, 'If a man tells his father or his mother, "Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban"' (that is, given to God)— 12then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do."
This is the explanation of how the Corban worked:
Jesus points out to them that they distorted the commandment of honouring one's father and one's mother. According to the Pharisees, if a child did not wish to obey that commandment, he had a get-out clause (verses 9-10). The child could swear by the gold of the temple and the gift upon the altar — the Corban — that he washed his hands of his parents (verse 11). Should his parents ask anything of him, all he had to do is say that he made his oath (verses 12 and 13).
Jesus rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for this practice. In the first woe (Matthew 23:13-15), he called them 'hypocrites'. Here he calls them 'blind guides' (verse 16) and 'fools (verse 17).
'Blind guides' is easily understood in the literal sense but Jesus primarily meant it as being spiritually blind, leading faithful Jews to perdition. In Matthew 15:10-20, He talked about what defiles a person:
10 And he called the people to him and said to them, "Hear and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person."
The Pharisees were offended. Jesus told His disciples:
14 Let them alone; they are blind guides.[a] And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit."
The spiritual condition of good people following spiritually blind leaders is bad. However, even worse is the condition of such leaders who deliberately deny, scorn or block out the truth from their followers. Their punishment and condemnation will be much the greater.
Jesus pronounced woe on these blind guides for honouring an oath made by the gold of the temple but dismissing one made by the temple (verse 16).
He called them fools because valuing an oath made by gold over one made by the temple made no sense (verse 17). An oath made by gold was only worth anything because it was made in the temple (verses 18, 19).
What they were doing was wrong on three counts. Matthew Henry explains.
First, Corban was not following God's law. It was:
the work of men's hands …
An oath is an appeal to God, to his omniscience and justice and to make this appeal to any creature is to put that creature in the place of God. See Deuteronomy 6:13.
Secondly, they placed a higher obligation on oaths made by gifts and sacrifices to enrich themselves than on an oath by the temple, which brought them no material gain. That said, neither should have been made in the first place:
Here was a double wickedness First, That there were some oaths which they dispensed with, and made light of, and reckoned a man was not bound by to assert the truth, or perform a promise. They ought not to have sworn by the temple or the altar but, when they had so sworn, they were taken in the words of their mouth. That doctrine cannot be of the God of truth which gives countenance to the breach of faith in any case whatsoever. Oaths are edge-tools and are not to be jested with. Secondly, That they preferred the gold before the temple, and the gift before the altar, to encourage people to bring gifts to the altar, and gold to the treasures of the temple, which they hoped to be gainers by.
Thirdly, they lured many faithful people into their deceitful tradition:
Those who had made gold their hope, and whose eyes were blinded by gifts in secret, were great friends to the Corban …
Looking at Jesus's statement and question about this, we see that He is telling them that without the oaths being made in the temple — God's house — the gold or gift has no meaning. Therefore, how can an oath made by gold be more important than one made in the temple? It is the location — the altar in the temple — that renders the gold holy:
19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
Henry tells us:
The temple and altar were dedicated to God fixedly, the gold and gift but secondarily.
Henry gives a practical Christian application of this lesson, warning us not to place our good works above or on a par with justification by faith:
Christ is our altar (Hebrews 13:10), our temple (John 2:21) for it is he that sanctifies all our gifts, and puts an acceptableness in them, 1 Peter 2:5. Those that put their own works into the place of Christ's righteousness in justification are guilty of the Pharisees' absurdity, who preferred the gift before the altar.
Where making promises and taking oaths are concerned, John MacArthur cautions us to take them seriously:
Keep your promise. Keep your word. God hates lying. So many Old Testament texts in the Psalms particularly. Let me just call your attention to several just as a point of contact. In Psalm 50, verse 14, "Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the Most High." Don't make promises you can't keep. Promise to God, keep your promise. Psalm 56:12, "Thy vows are upon me oh God, I will render praises unto thee. I'm bound by my promises to you oh God. I won't break my word." Psalm 61, verse 8 and these are just samples, "So will I sing praise to thy name forever, that I may daily perform my vows." Psalm 66:13, "I will go into the house with burnt offerings. I will pay thee my vows." Psalm 76:11, "Vow and pay unto the Lord your God." And it goes on like that a lot of places in the Old Testament. Keep your word to God. Keep your word to men.
Next week's entry will Jesus's final words on this woe.
Next time: Matthew 23:20-22
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn't tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today's reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
13 "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.[a] 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell[b] as yourselves.
Last week's entry on Matthew 22:23-33 ended with the final verse of that chapter. The Jewish leaders finally stopped challenging Jesus (emphases mine):
46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
Matthew 23 has Jesus's Seven Woes to the scribes and Pharisees, His damning response to them.
Some translations have Eight Woes. Today's verses show two instead of three. The bone of contention is verse 14, which appears in some Bibles, e.g. the King James Version — Matthew Henry's — but not in others, e.g. John MacArthur's:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation
As true as it is, John MacArthur tells us why it is excluded:
… the older manuscripts of the New Testament do not include verse 14, which is to say that if in the early manuscripts you don't have this verse and it shows up in the later manuscripts, it's usually evidence that it was added later. That it wasn't in the original. What is said in verse 14 is true about the Pharisees and scribes. In fact, it looks like a scribe took it out of Mark Chapter 12 and also Luke Chapter 20. Both of those Chapters mention the same kind of things. And probably a well meaning scribe thought that it fit in so well he just took it from Mark and Luke and put it here.
Matthew Henry offers an interesting explanation for this: that the eight woes are
in opposition to the eight beatitudes, Matthew 5:3.
Matthew 23:1-12 recounts our Lord's condemnation of the scribes and the Pharisees. He does not want His disciples to either follow them or act like them. This can be applied to false teachers in the Church:
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, 3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear,[a] and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6 and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues 7 and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi[b] by others. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.[c] 9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. 10 Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. 11 The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
In verse 13, Jesus pronounces the first woe on them. MacArthur explains woe:
The word woe in the Greek is a most interesting word. It's this word, lie, which doesn't even sound like a word. It sounds more like a painful guttural cry … It's an onomatopoetic word. That is it sounds like its meaning. It is a word that just utters similar to the Hebrew word to howl, which is the word hoi. It's a word used, for example, in the Septuagint to express grief, despair, sorrow, dissatisfaction, pain, and the threat of losing your life. It's used in the New Testament to speak of sorrow, to speak of judgment. It's the mingling of punishment and pity, cursing and compassion.
You could almost translate with the word alas; alas. And that's the word you find in Revelation talking about Babylon in Chapter 18; alas. It's as if to say inevitable judgment is coming, but oh how sad is that inevitable judgment. Judgment then is mingled with pity in the word woe.
In the same verse, He calls them hypocrites, from:
the word hupokrites. It originally came from a term which meant actor. Someone who played a part on a stage. Someone who pretended to be something he wasn't.
And it was a good word that I guess etymologically in its origination, but it came to be a very bad word and finally it came to mean deceiver; deceiver. One who pretends in an evil sense, who acts evilly.
MacArthur has an excellent quote from the late professor of Divinity, William Barclay (1907-1978), who taught at the University of Glasgow:
someone who manifests what he calls "theatrical goodness who parades an outward goodness but inwardly is evil. Who wants people to see him give."
Jesus said that these men were shutting the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. Henry tells us:
that is, they did all they could to keep people from believing in Christ, and so entering into his kingdom.
Jesus added that they do not 'enter' — or believe in Him — but, even worse, prohibited others from doing so. This went all the way back to John the Baptist's ministry, when many Jews were baptised and repented of their sins. The religious leaders never did this and, so, when Jesus began His ministry, dogged him with quarrels and accusations from the start. All of these were designed to discredit Him and discourage the faithful.
MacArthur says:
In other words, this mass of people in Israel were moving toward the kingdom … Repenting of their sin and trying to get their lives right and listening to the preaching of this prophet who confronted their evil lives and called them to obedience. In fact, it says in Chapter 3 of Matthew verse 5, "Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region round about the Jordan and they were baptized by him in the Jordan confessing their sins."
And right then the Pharisees showed up and the Sadducees and he said "oh generation of snakes," you snakes, "who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Bring forth the fruit of repentance." That's pretty confront[ational] stuff. But He knew why they were there. Here were all these people getting ready to move toward the kingdom and here came the very guys who would slam the door in their face. The false religious leaders. So the picture is one of movement of flow toward the kingdom and these people slammed the door in the faces.
This is the pursuit of the person who's looking for religious answers, who's searching for God, who's searching for some spiritual reality. And they shut up the kingdom. How'd they do that? By denying the word of God, misinterpreting the word of God, denying that Jesus was the Messiah. Denying His deity. Denying salvation by grace. Denying the need for repentance. They shut it in the faces of the people with a works righteousness system that had no place for Jesus Christ.
Now the point that its making here is that false spiritual leaders damn peoples' souls to hell. So you don't deal with this lightly.
In verse 15, Jesus pronounces 'woe' on these 'hypocrites' a second time, this time for travelling far and wide to make converts to the works righteousness system that He came to abolish by fulfilling the Law.
There were two types of proselytes, or converts, in Jesus's time. One was a proselyte of 'the gate', which meant that the person took part in religious worship with the Jews. The second was a proselyte of 'righteousness', which meant that he fully adhered to Mosaic Law and became a full convert, which included circumcision. There were more proselytes of the gate than those of righteousness for obvious reasons. However, this is why the Pharisees widened their net to travel so extensively in search of those who would enter fully into their religious system.
Jesus fully condemned this because of all the zealotry it brings with it:
you make him twice as much a child of hell[b] as yourselves.
MacArthur explains:
Have you ever noticed that a convert to a cult is more zealous and aggressive for the cult than somebody raised in it? That's pretty much routine. That's almost true of anything. That can be said of Christianity. Very frequently people saved out of the world and brought into Christ from an ungodly, un-Christlike background are more zealous for their newfound faith than people that are raised up in it.
There's something about that tremendous transition that is made. That euphoria of coming into the movement that gives you a great amount of zeal. And so here this new convert is filled with more fanatical zeal for his newfound system than even the ones that brought him in. And naturally there's a euphoria about having discovered what he thinks is the truth and the newness and he's not been in long enough to find out all the problems with it. And he becomes a double son of hell in the sense that he is perverted even beyond his teachers. And more zealous even than they are. And so they make a spiritual convert who turns out to be perverted instead of finding God, instead of finding heaven, he becomes a son of hell.
This extended into the Apostolic Age, the time of the Apostles' ministries. Henry reminds us:
In fury against Christianity the proselytes readily imbibed the principles which their crafty leaders were not wanting to possess them with, and so became extremely hot against the truth. The most bitter enemies the apostles met with in all places were the Hellenist Jews, who were mostly proselytes …
However, St Paul was a Pharisee by upbringing and was every bit as zealous. He took his persecution to distant places before his Damascene conversion, effected directly through Christ Himself (verses 14, 15). Acts 26 records his testimony before King Agrippa:
4 "My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews. 5 They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee. 6 And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, 7 to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king! 8 Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?
9 "I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. 11 And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities.
Then Paul's dramatic conversion occurred:
21 For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. 22 To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: 23 that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles."
It's difficult to imagine how dire that period, with its physical violence, must have been for those early Christians, suffering at the hands of zealots.
In closing, I wanted to look at the Pharisees' treatment of widows, often taken advantage of. This occurs today as well, including in the Church. Who is more vulnerable than a woman alone, especially one grieving the loss of her husband?
Henry explains what the Pharisees did under the cloak of religiosity and law. They ingratiated themselves to these vulnerable women to gain use or ownership of their property for their own personal gain:
What their wicked practices were they devoured widows' houses, either by quartering themselves and their attendants upon them for entertainment, which must be of the best for men of their figure or by insinuating themselves into their affections, and so getting to be the trustees of their estates, which they could make an easy prey of for who could presume to call such as they were to an account? The thing they aimed at was to enrich themselves and, this being their chief and highest end, all considerations of justice and equity were laid aside, and even widows' houses were sacrificed to this. Widows are of the weaker sex in its weakest state, easily imposed upon and therefore they fastened on them, to make a prey of. They devoured those whom, by the law of God, they were particularly obliged to protect, patronise, and relieve. There is a woe in the Old Testament to those that made widows their prey (Isaiah 10:1,2) and Christ here seconded it with his woe. God is the judge of the widows they are his peculiar care, he establisheth their border (Proverbs 15:25), and espouseth their cause (Exodus 22:22,23) yet these were they whose houses the Pharisees devoured by wholesale so greedy were they to get their bellies filled with the treasures of wickedness! Their devouring denotes not only covetousness, but cruelty in their oppression, described Micah 3:3, They eat the flesh, and flay off the skin. And doubtless they did all this under colour of law for they did it so artfully that it passed uncensured, and did not at all lessen the people's veneration for them.
This reading gives us two practical takeaways for our era.
First, let us not do anything by coercion, forcing people to give their money, property or time to the Church. Leave it for church members to decide if that is what they wish to do. Coercion is no different to works righteousness and legalism.
Secondly, new converts quite rightly are 'on fire for Christ', as I so often read online. However, those who are 'all in' — another commonly used expression — should take care how they present this to their families, especially wives and children. Many who have come to the church from the occult or addiction display an off-putting tendency to push their faith down other people's throats. Their approach in its mildest form looks nutty but, when extreme, has the potential to become threatening and violent.
Coercion and threatening behaviour is not in His Name nor is it evidence of the Gospel of Grace. In fact, it often leads to cultlike allegiances and alliances.
Pray for guidance, discernment and a cool head.
Next time: Matthew 23:16-19
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn't tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today's reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection
23 The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, 24 saying, "Teacher, Moses said, 'If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.' 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. 26 So too the second and third, down to the seventh. 27 After them all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her."
29 But Jesus answered them, "You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not God of the dead, but of the living." 33 And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.
Matthew 22 records the continuation of theological tests from the Jewish hierarchy and Jesus's lessons to them.
These took place on Wednesday of His last Passover, which we commemorate during Holy Week.
Matthew 22:1-14 is the Parable of the Wedding Feast. This is an allegory for God's invitation to share eternal life with Him. The king in Jesus's parable prepared a wedding feast but those he invited turned the celebration down because they were otherwise occupied. Some even killed his servants, the king's messengers. The king then instructed his servants to invite all and sundry, both 'bad and good' (verse 10). One man was not wearing a wedding garment, not because he could not afford one but because he did not care, a reference to the state of our hearts. The king threw him out. Jesus concluded the parable:
13 Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 14 For many are called, but few are chosen."
Jesus meant that, through Him, God extended an invitation to the Jews to eternal life through belief in His Son the Messiah. The Jews rejected Him, so God invited the Gentiles instead. However, those who do not honour God, like the man not wearing a wedding garment, face His condemnation to eternal death.
It is useful to add that this parable refers to God's condemnation of them and their people in 70 AD with the destruction of the temple.
Matthew Henry gives us the takeaways of the Parable of the Wedding Feast (emphases mine):
… this feast, a heaven upon earth now, and a heaven in heaven shortly. God has prepared it in his counsel, in his covenant.
Gospel calls and offers are represented by an invitation to this feast. Those that make a feast will have guests to grace the feast with. God's guests are the children of men.
… none are excluded but those that exclude themselves … They are bidden to the wedding, that they may go forth to meet the bridegroom for it is the Father's will that all men should honour the Son.
Note, Making light of Christ, and of the great salvation wrought out by him, is the damning sin of the world. Amelesantes—They were careless. Note, Multitudes perish eternally through mere carelessness, who have not any direct aversion, but a prevailing indifference, to the matters of their souls, and an unconcernedness about them.
Observe, Both the city and the country have their temptations, the merchandise in the one, and the farms in the other so that, whatever we have of the world in our hands, our care must be to keep it out of our hearts, lest it come between us and Christ.
The prophets and John the Baptist had been thus abused already, and the apostles and ministers of Christ must count upon the same.
Such were some of you or, some that after their conversion proved bad, that turned not to the Lord with all their heart, but feignedly others that were upright and sincere, and proved of the right class. Ministers, in casting the net of the gospel, enclose both good fish and bad but the Lord knows them that are his.
Observe, This hypocrite was never discovered to be without a wedding garment, till the king himself came in to see the guests. Note, It is God's prerogative to know who are sound at heart in their profession, and who are not. We may be deceived in men, either one way or other but He cannot. The day of judgment will be the great discovering day, when all the guests will be presented to the King …
Those, and those only, who put on the Lord Jesus, that have a Christian temper of mind, and are adorned with Christian graces, who live by faith in Christ, and to whom he is all in all, have the wedding garment.
They who never heard a word of this wedding feast will have more to say for themselves their sin will be more excusable, and their condemnation more tolerable, than theirs who came to the feast without the wedding garment, and so sin against the clearest light and dearest love.
… they are few, very few, that are chosen many called to the wedding feast, but few chosen to the wedding garment, that is, to salvation, by sanctification of the Spirit. This is the strait gate, and narrow way, which few find.
The Pharisees then asked Jesus paying tax to Caesar (verses 15-22). They wanted to trap Him into taking one theological side or the other. The Pharisees despised Roman rule and opposed paying tax to their oppressors. Their theological opponents, the Herodians, supported Roman rule. They did well out of it as a result. The people, in turn, loathed the Herodians.
Here they mocked Jesus by calling Him 'Master' insincerely. Jesus called them out:
18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?
He asked them to produce a coin, which they did. He asked them whose it was, and they replied, 'Caesar's'. He answered them (verse 21):
"Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
They marvelled at His response and went away.
However, Henry makes this distinction:
Note, There are many in whose eyes Christ is marvellous, and yet not precious. They admire his wisdom, but will not be guided by it, his power, but will not submit to it. They went their way, as persons ashamed, and made an inglorious retreat. The stratagem being defeated, they quitted the field. Note, There is nothing got by contending with Christ.
Then it was the turn of the Sadducees to approach Him, which brings us to today's verses.
There were four groups of Jews in Jesus's time. John MacArthur explains:
Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots and Essenes. Essenes were sort of hermits down in the desert who spent all their time copying scrolls and most likely copies the Dead Sea Scrolls, which we have found. Then there were the Zealots who were political activists, who were very nationalistic, who were sort of the terrorists, who were giving trouble to Rome. And then there were the Pharisees who were the religionists. And then there were the Sadducees.
And I'll give you a little bit of information about them so you'll understand what's going on here. They were not many in number. They were a very small group. They were extremely wealthy and very influential. They were the aristocratic ruling class in Judaism. They were the highest echelon. In fact, the chief priests, the high priest, the noblest of the priests were Sadducees … The majority of the members of the Sanhedrin, the ruling body in Israel were also Sadducees. So they had great power, they had great influence, they had great prestige, and they also were wealthy because it was they who ran the temple concessions, the money changing, the buying and selling of all sorts of things that went on there were under their power.
They were not popular with the people. First of all rich people who tend to do things for the expediency of their own personal gain don't tend to be very popular. Secondly, their theology was not the theology of the people, for it denied the resurrection. The Pharisees were more popular with the people, and so the conflict between the Pharisees and the Sadducees even added to their unpopularity. They had structural power, they had money power, they gouged the people with the money changing, they gouged the people with the selling and the buying of the animals for the sacrifices, they were not a popular group.
Now politically they were pro Rome, which even added to their unpopularity. They were pro Rome for this reason: they were fat cats …
MacArthur says they were also very literal in their interpretation of Scripture, which helps us make more sense of the hypothetical situation they put forward to Jesus.
Now MacArthur says we do not know how the Sadducees got their name, but Henry did. He tells us:
These heretics were called Sadducees from one Sadoc, a disciple of Antigonus Sochæus, who flourished about two hundred and eighty-four years before our Saviour's birth. They lie under heavy censures among the writers of their own nation, as men of base and debauched conversations, which their principles led them to. As the Pharisees and Essenes seemed to follow Plato and Pythagoras, so the Sadducees were much of the genius of the Epicureans[;] they denied the resurrection, they said, There is no future state, no life after this that, when the body dies, the soul is annihilated, and dies with it that there is no state of rewards or punishments in the other world no judgment to come in heaven or hell. They maintained, that, except God, there is not spirit (Acts 23:8), nothing but matter and motion. They would not own the divine inspiration of the prophets, nor any revelation from heaven, but what God himself spoke upon mount Sinai.
The Sadducees held that only the Pentateuch — the first five books of the Bible, those credited to Moses — were the only valid Scripture. Everything else — Psalms, prophecies and others — held no validity for them. They also rejected the whole body of Jewish traditions from generations before.
In verse 23, we are told they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They presented a scenario to Jesus involving the Mosaic Law which said that a widow must remarry a single brother of her late husband's so that the family lineage — and God's chosen — could continue and multiply (verse 24).
Henry explains:
They suggest the law of Moses in this matter (Matthew 22:24), that the next of kin should marry the widow of him that died childless (Deuteronomy 25:5) we have it practised Ruth 4:5. It was a political law, founded in the particular constitution of the Jewish commonwealth, to preserve the distinction of families and inheritances, of both which there was special care taken in that government.
MacArthur tells us of Ruth:
You remember Elimelech had two sons and Ruth had married one of the sons and that son had died. You remember his name was Obed and there was no child. And along came Boaz into her life and Boaz took her as his wife and raised up a child and we're very interested in that because you must remember that the line of Elimelech was the line of whom, of Messiah. And so that very idea of a near kinsman coming into the line to take up the place of a dead husband to raise up seed fits right into the line of Messiah Himself.
God blessed Boaz and Ruth for their obedience.
On the other hand, God killed Onan for not marrying his widowed sister-in-law. That was before God instituted this law via Moses. Even so, there was a God-given expectation to Jacob's sons — the twelve tribes — that everyone would play a role in their continuance:
You go back into the time before the law in the 38thchapter of Genesis in the time of the household of Judah, the son of Jacob, and you will remember that there was a situation where Onan, you remember the name Onan, Onan refused to comply and to raise up a child to his dead brother's wife, and the Bible said Onan spilled his seed on the ground. He refused to give a child to his brother's wife, to go in and become her husband, and take that role. And it says that God killed him, Genesis 38:8-10. God took his life, because in those early years in the formation of that people and keeping that identification pure that Messiah might come to His people, God maintained these kind of laws so that names and families could be passed on.
MacArthur says it was not clear how strictly this law was applied in Jesus's time, however, it would have been important to the Sadducees. They asked Jesus a mocking question about the afterlife (verses 25-28). What would happen if a woman married all the brothers of one family in succession with no children: whose wife would she be after the resurrection?
Jesus point blank told them they were wrong in their thinking and their question (verse 29), because they knew neither Scripture nor the power of God the Father. MacArthur says:
He really discredits them. You are mistaken and He uses the word planeo. We got our word planet from it. It means to cause to wander, to lead astray and it's in the middle voice reflective. It means you are causing yourself to wander. You are leading yourself astray from the truth. You are mentally cut loose from reality. That's really what He's saying. To put it in the vernacular, you are spaced out.
Had you known the Scriptures you would have known God promises resurrection. Had you known the power of God you would have known that God can raise people in a state where that's not going to be an issue. If you knew the power of God you would know that He wouldn't recreate people with the same problems here. He's not limited to that, as if God has spent all His creative power on the way we are and can't improve on it? If you knew the power of God and if you knew the Scripture you wouldn't be so spaced out in your thinking.
Jesus then went on to say that when we are resurrected, marriage will be finished; we will be 'like angels in heaven' (verse 30). MacArthur explains:
There will be no two people who have an exclusive relationship. There will be no intimacy in that sense, and I mean that in the sense of marriage. It could even extend from there to friendships. Nobody will be closer to anybody else because we'll all be perfectly close to each other and all perfectly intimate with the living God Himself.
We're not going to be the angels, but be like them. And they were glorious eternal heavenly creatures whose number was fixed who never died and never reproduced. Marriage is necessary in this life for reproduction, preservation, propagation for the race. In [heaven] it will be as unnecessary for us as it is for angels. That's why Luke in his parallel passage says, "We will be equal to the angels." Equally deathless, equally spiritual, equally glorified, equally eternal, who have no longer any need to reproduce.
More importantly, Jesus took the Sadducees apart over their unbelief regarding the resurrection. These men who held the Pentateuch so dearly really didn't know it, because Jesus cited Exodus 3:6 (verses 31, 32).
MacArthur unpacks this for us:
You say, well wait a minute. Is that supposed to be a statement about resurrection? It is. Is indeed a statement about resurrection. He quotes Moses because that's what they demanded and the statement is an emphatic statement. In the Greek it's egome I am, present tense, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And the argument here is an argument of the verb tense. He doesn't say I was he God of Abraham, I was the God of Isaac, and I was the God of Jacob. You see in Exodus 3:6, Abraham was dead, Isaac was dead, and Jacob was dead already. How then can He say I am the God of Abraham, I am the God of Isaac, I am the God of Jacob, which is exactly what the Hebrew of 3:6 implies?
Well you can see it also in Genesis 26:24, Genesis 28:13, God says I am the God of Abraham and in both of those passages Abraham is already dead. And in Exodus 3:6, Exodus 3;15, Exodus 3:16, Exodus 4:15, God says I'm the God of Abraham, I'm the God of Isaac, I'm the God of Jacob, and they're already dead. And His point then, at the end of the verse, is God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, so if God says I am the God of these people they must be, what, alive, alive. God is not worshipped by corpses. He's not the God of people who don't exist. Who wants to be the God of people who don't exist?
Now note that each is individually singled out there, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and He's talking about personal intimate relationship of each of them. Now the genitive here of the God of, the God of, the God of, can be seen two ways. It could mean this: the God to whom Abraham belongs, the God to whom Isaac belongs, the God to whom Jacob belongs. Or it could mean the God who belongs to Abraham, the God who belongs to Isaac, the God who belongs to Jacob, and I like to see both. I am the God to whom Abraham belongs and who belongs to Abraham. I am the God to whom Isaac belongs and who belongs to Isaac. I am the God to whom Jacob belongs and who belongs to Jacob. In other words, I am the God who continues to have an intimate relationship of life and worship with these who are dead, which means they still must be, what, alive.
When the crowd heard that, they were 'astonished' (verse 33). This is because Jesus was able to answer His enemies perfectly. Remember, most of those people did not recognise Him as their Messiah.
MacArthur says this passage should leave us with three messages about Jesus:
… one, I see here the majestic deity of Jesus.
Second thing I see is His commitment to Scripture.
And thirdly I see his affirmation of resurrection. Whenever I might be prone to doubt the resurrection I'm reminded that Jesus never doubted it for a moment, never for a moment, and affirms here that those who are dead are still alive because God is the God of the living. And so I'm encouraged with another view of Jesus as God, with another view of His dependence on Scripture, with another view of the hope of everlasting life. Instead of them discrediting Him, He discredited them and exposed Himself in all His majesty one more time.
After two more unsuccessful religious tests, Matthew 22 ends with this:
46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
Matthew 23 recounts what Jesus did next. He condemned the hierarchy with seven woes.
In closing, there are two parallel accounts of this exchange. Mark 12:18-27, about which I wrote in 2013, is not in the Lectionary. However, Luke's — Luke 20:27-38 — is included.
Next time: Matthew 23:13-15
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn't tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today's reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him."[e]
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46 And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.
Today's verses follow on from last week's reading wherein the chief priests and the elders challenge Jesus's authority.
After that challenge, Jesus related two parables to them. The first was the Parable of the Two Sons (Matthew 21:28-32). A father asked his two sons to work in the family vineyard. One initially declined, but decided to obey his father. The second son told his father he would work but did not. Jesus asked the religious leaders which son did the father's will. All said that the first son did. Then, alluding again to John the Baptist's exhortation to baptism and repentance, Jesus said that the tax collectors and prostitutes who took John's call seriously would enter the kingdom of God before they would.
The second story was the Parable of the Tenants (Matthew 21:33-44). The owner of an estate with a vineyard leased the winepress to his tenants and left the country for a period of time. Before he returned, he sent word via his servants that the tenants were to prepare the fruit. The tenants killed or stoned one after another. They even killed the man's son — taking him off the property to do so, just as Jesus was taken out of the gates of Jerusalem for His Crucifixion (Hebrews 13:12-13).
Jesus cited Psalm 118:22-23:
22 The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.[a]
23 This is the Lord's doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
He warned the religious leaders once again, delivering the same lesson as in the Parable of the Two Sons.
He passed judgement on them, saying that the Gentiles would inherit the kingdom of God instead:
43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him."[e]
John MacArthur explains:
Jesus says to the leaders of Israel, "You have lost the right to be in the place of blessing." God turned from Israel.
Like they said, let's seize that son and kill him, He is saying whoever tries to seize the Lord Jesus Christ to do harm to Him shall be broken into pieces. You do that to God's Son and that's what God will do to you. He will, in the words of the Jews who responded, He will miserably destroy those wicked men who seized His Son. You fall upon the Lord Jesus Christ to do evil to Him, to do harm to Him and you'll be broken to bits. And then in the final judgment when He falls on you, you'll be crushed to powder. That's what it says. Oh my…strong words, strong words.
MacArthur discusses the phrase in verse 44, 'broken in pieces':
The Greek verb "grind him to powder" couldn't be translated better than that. That's the best translation of it. It's not simply a crushing, but a scattering into nothingness. You do harm to Christ, you seize Christ and kill Him and you'll be broken. And when He comes in judgment, He will crush. A parallel is Daniel 2:34 and 35 where it shows the empires of the world in that image, you remember? And the stone cut out without hands who is Christ smashes that thing. Christ will come as a crushing stone, a judge. And He will judge in a pulverizing eternal judgment those who have rejected Him.
So, the illustration, conclusion, given out of their own mouth. Jesus gives the explanation. And taking their own words that such people ought to be judged and replaced, He says that's what you've done to Jesus Christ, you too will be judged and replaced in the sphere of blessing.
These men knew Jesus was talking about them in those two parables (verse 45). Yet — and yet — they feared the crowds more than He (verse 46). Was the only thing holding them back from arresting Him then and there the wrath of God? No, it was the wrath of … the crowds.
In other words, they feared men more than God. That sums up their whole outlook. They craved the approval and awe of men in everything they did. Yet, they posed as men of God, His representatives on earth.
Their hypocrisy was astonishing.
MacArthur compared them with Herod:
Herod Antipas was afraid to take John and kill him because the people thought he was a prophet. And now they're cowards, they don't want to touch Jesus because the people think He's a prophet and they're afraid. That's the only thing that holds them back. They are so lost…so lost. The Sanhedrin wants Jesus dead but they're afraid. They've just heard the truth about themselves, they could care less. They know He's the Son of God, they don't care about that either. Oh my, what unbelievable unbelief, but it is characteristic of all unbelievers who reject against the truth. So sad.
MacArthur reminds us that the Jews also rejected the prophets of the Old Testament:
They took Jeremiah and threw him into a pit and tradition says ultimately he was stoned. They rejected Ezekiel. Amos had to run for his life. Zechariah was rejected and stoned. Micah was smashed in the face, 1 Kings 22:24 says, by the people who would not hear the message that he gave. And this is the norm, this is how they treated the prophets, the kings and the high priests and the leaders of the people, the religious people. This is how they treated God's prophets.
In a few weeks' time, we will be coming to Matthew 23:31, which is on the same theme. So is Matthew 23:34, which is in the three-year Lectionary and read on the feast day of the martyr St Stephen. MacArthur summarises the overall message:
This is the norm. They have rejected the prophets. They rejected the son and they'll continue to reject, He says. And they did.
This is another warning that God punishes conscious, willful unbelief. Lack of belief in His Son Jesus Christ also brings divine condemnation. This is because He sent Jesus as our Mediator and Advocate with Him.
Equally important in this second half of Matthew 21 is further proof that Jesus gives of His deity. MacArthur tells us (emphases mine):
I believe this is one of the most missed and yet most clear claims to deity that our Lord ever gave. He says here God sent you prophets and then God sent a son. And Mark 12:6, an only son. And so Christ distinguishes Himself as the Son of God, sent from God as different than the prophets. He's not a servant like their servants, he's a son. It is a claim to deity. And in the parable, this is the heir, to him belongs the inheritance, is the implication. This is the son. It is a remarkable claim by Jesus to be the Son of God, a claim for which they wanted Him dead. There's no way around it. He claimed to be the only Son of God, not a prophet like other prophets, not even the best of the prophets. Nothing less will do than that He is the incarnate Son of God. He is either that or He is a false prophet and a liar …
Do you realize that Jesus is here telling them to their face that He knows they'll kill Him? That's right. There's no surprise to Him. He's not a victim. He said, "I am not having My life taken from Me," in John's gospel, "I lay it down of Myself."
That Jesus is not a victim is important to remember, especially on Good Friday. We should make sure that young people and others learning about the faith understand and remember that.
Next time: Matthew 22:23-33


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