Jesus and the religious leaders did not see eye to eye, to put it mildly. The Pharisees (religious leaders) represented the religious establishment that was set in their ways and didn’t appreciate his new ideas. They had a system that wasn’t even based on God’s word or his law, and they didn’t want it disrupted or challenged, or changed. The Pharisees loved what they considered expert knowledge of the Torah and with it the respect of the Jewish community. They were the elites, the privileged, the rule-makers, and the wealthy. As the book of Proverbs teaches, pride comes before a fall, these so-called religious leaders missed the coming Messiah.
Jesus had new ideas, new ways to interpret the law and the prophets, and a totally new way of relating to God as Father. Jesus was the up-and-coming Rabbi with new and exciting ideas of what it means to follow God’s laws. Rather than focusing on the externals, Jesus was focused on the inward transformation of the heart and real change on the inside. The truth is Jesus posed a real threat to the religious establishment and he came head to head, face to face with them constantly offending, challenging, and convicting the religious leaders or Pharisees.
“Sinners,” tax collectors, and prostitutes loved Jesus’ nature, teachings, and interpretation of the law because it wasn’t focused on good behavior but on the mercy and grace of God to change the heart. Jesus introduced ideas of acceptance and love, and this love could change hearts, free from sin, and not just outward behavior which is what the Pharisees were focused on.
Realizing the Pharisees were distancing people from God by their man-made rules and ideas, hindering people from receiving God’s love, and putting obstacles in the way of people to receive grace and mercy, Jesus calls them out in his famous woes to the Pharisees recorded in the book of Matthew.
These 7 woes serve as a wake-up call to the church today – that we heed this warning.
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