Pharisees Pt 2: 12 signs you might be a Pharisee: “South Carolina “Hole Checkers”
By Lacy Evans
Hello! My name is Lacy and I am a Pharisee. (Hello Lacy!)
I am a Pharisee by nature. It’s the devil’s ju-jitsu move against folks who preach holiness. (Plus, I just like a good fight!) I am in this deep. It is who I am, and healing has been a long drawn out process . . . still in process. So it’s not that I am standing on a hill judging Pharisees. I’m down in the valley with my people, my fellow Pharisees, hoping for mercy.
Many of us suffer from this “disease”. Many of us are in various stages of Pharisee recovery.
A couple of years ago I was seeing a great non-traditional doctor for my wife and visiting some dear friends in South Carolina. We did house church there and it was a real blessing. God moved. But one incident, a teaching moment I suppose, is etched in my memory.
As we Pharisees are prone to do, I dragged my daughter (two years old, at the time) out for a Pharisee dog and pony show. I had to show how holy my family was by parading my daughter’s burgeoning two-year old righteousness out for all to gawk. So she did “Jesus Loves Me” (With the ASL hand signs) Well . . . the ASL sign for Jesus is formed by alternately pointing to the palm of one hand with the middle finger of he other hand. “Je (point)-sus (point)”. I have to admit it is beautiful and even if it’s not my precious, wonderful, beautiful, adorable, sweet, (where’s my thesaurus) daughter. Even if it was a total stranger. It is still to me the most beautiful way of all to “say” Jesus. Well after her song, one of the ladies present felt compelled to correct, Sadie, and American Sign Language. She had to tell me that Sadie was pointing at the palms when she signed “Jesus,” but that the “actual part of the hand where Our Lord was pierced was the wrist.”
Now that may or may not be true, but before she could stop and just rest and revel in the beauty of a child signing and singing “Jesus Loves Me,” she had to check the location of the hole. So many times we have to check the location of our brother or sister’s “holes” before we can fellowship with them, and often in doing so, we lose the beauty of the moment that God was sharing with us.
Matthew 23:23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
1) You might be a Pharisee if: You major on the minors.
Sometimes, I admit, different folks have different reasons for deciding what is a “major” and what is a “minor”. Everyone deserves a chance to be heard. But the anti-gnats must be careful not to raise up an anti-gnat standard then battle under it to the bloody death! These “standards” are often false standards, extra-biblical standards, or perhaps just mis-prioritized standards. Gnats are yucky! That is true. But swallowing a camel is often fatal.
These Pharisees had church life down to an art form. There was no messiness allowed. Their kids were well behaved. (Probably sang “Jesus Loves Me” and pointed to the wrists!) Their tithing was a thing of beauty. They had calculated the tithe down to the smallest herb and seed grown in their garden. But, judgment, mercy, and faith were lacking in their doctrine and their walk. And that’s the thing we have to watch, the thing we have to ask ourselves, Do we truly live Judgment Mercy, and Faith? (Throw “Love” in there.) or do we just pay it lip service or redefine the terms to justify our gnat straining?
2) You might be a Pharisee if: You create and hold to super-scriptural rules.
Matthew 15:1 Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,
2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.
3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.
5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;
6 And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.
7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Usually a Pharisee will take a good solid biblical precept and over-enforce it. They take their own specific conclusions and convictions ABOUT the clearly biblical truth and make those convictions/conclusions binding to the whole group. Washing your hands is a good thing. It was no doubt a “logical” conclusion, perhaps even a legitimate personal conviction that a rabbi had concerning some of the levitical ceremonial laws outlined clearly in the Old Testament. One problem was that his conviction about the scripture became as binding to his followers as the scripture itself. The scripture that a woman should be a “keeper at home” becomes, “No woman under any circumstance may work outside the home and all your children must be home schooled” or the command to “not wear that which pertains to a man” morphs into a huge list of what women can and cannot wear, or what color a man’s shirt can be, or whether a man should have zippers or buttons, sandals or tennis shoes, ad infinitum. It becomes a gnat that misses the whole point.
3) You might be a Pharisee if: You get angry or break off fellowship with anyone who doesn’t follow your code.
They were ready to kill Jesus because he didn’t wash his hands. But he refused to play their game, refused to acknowledge their authority. When a pharisee’s pet standard, or darling concern is ignored, the fight is on. I’ve been called worldly, accused of cozying up to backsliders and rebels, even warned that I might become a homosexual if I didn’t get in line with the “code”. None of these are exaggerations. I have friends who have been excluded from fellowship because their wife had a job and their children were in a private school, and not home schooled. I’ve seen women ostracized because they had a C-section, in a hospital (of all things).
4) You might be a Pharisee if you are manipulative.
Matt 23:25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
Extortion is the illegal use of one’s official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or PATRONAGE. Pharisees hated Jesus because Jesus hated and exposed their lust to control. (They hated all prophets for that same reason.) A Pharisee has to look good and he has to have everyone under his influence look good. But it’s about control. “What do you think?” “Well let me ask _______________.”
He’s got you!
Who can you marry? What can you eat? What can you wear? Where can you work, live, visit? Who can your friends be? What can you believe? There is wisdom and protection in a multitude counsel. Limiting that multitude to one or several charismatic individuals is dangerous.
5) You might be a Pharisee if: Your standard of comparison is your self.
The looking outward toward the “world”, toward straw-man extremes, toward the “modern age” as a way to say how much more holy “we” are than “them” is the fuel that moves the Pharisee. It is the thing that motivates him.
Luke 18:11 (King James Version)
11The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
I thank God that I (Fill in the blank with any number of Christian Mishnah items) and that I never, never, never eat a gnat!
Jesus didn’t seem too impressed with the Pharisee’s “holiness.” But the publican’s humility was golden!
6) You might be a Pharisee if you: Put yourself above other parts of the body.
“I AM NOT LIKE THIS PUBLICAN!!! “ was the Pharisee’s saving grace! A Pharisee will create labels for himself like “Fundamentalist” and labels for everyone else like “Liberal” and “Modern”. You ole Publican you!
Part 3 (Numbers 7-12 coming soon.)