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.)
