Beware: Traps of Pharisiasm

Passage: Luke 17:37-54

Scripture/s:
"And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them." vs. 4-6

"...Woe to you...because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who are entering." vs 52

Insights:

Here's one scripture that fascinates me about Jesus' character. Jesus was uttering "woes" against the top religious leaders of his day. These were people whom he spent time with, some of them were his friends, some of them were teachers he learned from as a young man. (Luke 2:46-49, Luke 5:17, Luke 6:1,2,6, Luke 7:36, Luke 10:25, Luke 11:37)

I mean, try mounting on one table and start uttering woes on everyone's sin. You will get the beating of your life.

Going back and forth Luke, I realized that Jesus' ministry almost centered on criticizing the religious practices of his time. In several occassions, Jesus debated with, preached on, utterly resisted traps from, and spoke openly against the Pharisee, teachers of the law, the Sadducees.

If you are interested to learn about the background of the Pharisees, please click on the link entitled "The story of the Pharisees", but in this article, I'd like to higlight Jesus' character.

JESUS IN THE FACE OF PHARISAISM:

• As Jesus professed, He is humble and gentle, yet when it comes to exposing the sins of the people who claim to be leaders, He was ruthless, without fear
• Jesus exhibited complete freedom from the bondage of legalism. It was as natural to him as breathing air. His disciples, Peter and Paul often talked about struggling to escape the false religiousity they have imbibed from their culture.
• Jesus accepted all that was good, and potentially good in the attitudes and teachings of the religious teachers (Matthew 23:1-4), but with clarity He refuted every point of the law that was misinterpreted and distorted. With precision, He rejected what was evil.
• Jesus practiced the law with all His heart and displayed the righteousness of it in His life.
• Jesus became a spokesperson for the masses, who in ignorance of the burdensome religion placed upon them by the Pharisees, could not speak up for themselves.
• Jesus was speaking the truth in love.

AVOIDING THE TRAPS OF PHARISAISM:

As Christians, we must avoid the pitfalls of both legalism (when we are too rigid about rules in our lives) and disobedience to God (when we are too loose spiritually, and tend to live the way we please). One author used this analogy on the paradoxes(seemingly opposite truths) of the Bible:

In order for an acrobat to successfully cross the rope, the two poles at the end of the rope must be pulling in the opposite directions, thereby providing tension for the acrobat to cross the rope.

Walking balancely between the paradoxes of the Bible will create tension, but that is what is healthy.

We must strive to obey God at all times. Sometimes, we do need to create guidelines or rules for ourselves in order to make sure that we obey God. Guidelines are helpful and important. However, we must not think that we can impose the same "rules" to everyone as if they are God's laws themselves. When we induce guilt in others (may be unconsciously) in order for them to follow our advice, when we start to make others fear us more than they fear God, then we might fall into the trap of Pharisaism.

The danger of Pharisaism is that it causes spiritual and psychological damage to people. When we subject people to demanding legalism, we damage their personalities and we make it hard for them to have healthy spiritual lives. This is what so angered Jesus.

The best thing we can do to help others is to encourage them to have an intimate walk with God. We must encourage them to pray for wisdom in whatever situation they have, and to FIRST DETERMINE WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS BEFORE SEEKING OPINION. I believe that God will prompt them to seek further advice from the appropriate people if they need to. Advice is good, the Bible says so (Proverbs 15:22)