Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Matthew 23:13-15

“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. 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 as yourselves.


Christ had preached that He was the way into the kingdom. By rejecting Christ (v 13), the Pharisees were closing the kingdom to any who followed them.

"This passage [Matthew 23:13-33] is often called 'the seven woes,' each beginning with the same phrase.  (There are eight if v 14, omitted in many manuscripts, is included.)" (Ryrie)

"False religion and pretense are always the worst enemies of the truth and are far more dangerous than immorality or indifference. As the religious leaders of the Jews, they were held guilty before God of blocking the way for others seeking to enter into the kingdom of God." (Walvoord)

Verse 14 isn’t in most manuscripts. It was probably copied from Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47.

proselyte - "Convert from paganism to Judaism." (Ryrie)

"The Jews recognized two sorts of proselytes: those who agreed to the so-called seven precepts of Noah, and those who submitted to circumcision and became full Jews by religion." (KJV Commentary)

"The Pharisees were described as extremely energetic on both land and sea to make proselytes of the Jewish religion. But when they were successful, Jesus Charged, "Ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves," In referring to hell, Christ used the word Geenna or Gehenna, a reference to eternal damnation, rather than to Hades, the temporary abode of the wicked in the intermediate state. The Pharisees and their proselytes both would end up in eternal damnation."(Walvoord)

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