An Example To Be Avoided
AN EXAMPLE TO BE AVOIDED
MATTHEW 23:1-12
The Pharisees burdened people’s lives with an impossible pressure of “oughts.”
Not all Pharisees were willing to engage with Jesus in friendly debate. This chapter brings together a number of criticisms of tendencies to which people of Pharisaic attitude (today as in the first century) are specially prone. Where stress is laid on strict lawkeeping as an expression of heart-devotion to God, it is possible for some to emulate the outward law-keeping and so gain a reputation for a heart-devotion which is not there (cf. 6:1ff.). The Pharisees themselves were well aware of this, and while seven categories of Pharisee are enumerated in the rabbinical writings, only one of these—he who is a Pharisee for love of God—receives unqualified commendation.
Jesus warns his hearers, and especially his disciples, against the temptations to which Pharisees were exposed, setting up a standard of legal righteousness impossible of attainment for ordinary working men (“the people of the land,” as they called them) and receiving deferential treatment because of their reputation for piety. The “phylacteries” of 23:5 are parchments containing four passages from the Old Testament. (Exodus 13:1-10; 13:11-16; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21) in parallel columns, placed in leather containers and worn on the forehead and left arm in literal fulfillment of Deuteronomy 6:8 (before AD 70, as the Qumran discoveries indicate, the Ten Commandments were also included). The “fringes” were the tassels prescribed in Numbers 15:38f.; Deuteronomy 22:12 (cf. Matthew 9:20; 14:36). Extra-large phylacteries and tassels (like an extra-large Bible carried under the arm) might be regarded by unthinking people as signs of exceptional piety. Jesus bids his followers avoid such ostentation, and dispense with the use of honorific titles. In this regard, as in some others (cf. 5:34ff.), his instructions have been taken with serious literalness by the Friends. This part of the discourse ends with a repetition of his characteristic insistence on service and humility as the hallmarks of his disciples (23:11f.).
Note At a rather later date “Moses’ seat” (23:2) was the actual chair in the synagogue in which a rabbi sat as he taught (cf. Luke 4:20), but probably not so early as this. Here the expression probably means that they expound the law which Moses received on Sinai.
Thought Somebody must have the place of honor: it is wanting, not having, the front seat that is wrong.