SOTM 14: Christians the New Pharisees?

"For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

-Mt. 5:20

Jesus could be pretty harsh sometimes. He was no pushover and he wasn't there to tickle people's ears by telling them what they wanted to hear. But when Jesus laid down the smack it was almost always towards his own people--his fellow Jewish religious types. Jesus says that to enter into the Kingdom of heaven our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees. Jesus isn't raising the bar from the Old Testament Law, he's trying to get us back on track. Later on Jesus reveals what he means by the righteousness of the Pharisees. He calls them white-washed tombs. He says that their righteousness was only on the outside which is really not righteousness at all. In other words they were hypocrites.

Sadly, the way Jesus viewed the Pharisees is not much different from how our world often views Christians. And I wish I could say they are unjustified but the evidence is conclusive. In virtually every area of behavior that Christians claim to be against, there is virtually no difference between us and everyone else--domestic abuse, viewing pornography, consulting mediums or psychics, lying, revenge, use of illegal drugs. . . the list goes on (see below). Yet at the same time we outshine everyone else in the number of Bibles we own and number of religious services we attend. Let's face it, by-and-large, Christians are the new Pharisees.

As I discussed in the last post, the problem with much of Christianity is that we think, and we come across as thinking, that following rules is what it is all about. The irony here is that the more we think that's what it's about the worse we are at actually doing it! The answer is not to try harder but daily to confess our sins before the one who came to fulfill the law--that through a genuinely growing relationship with Him we might be transformed into the kinds of people who actually do follow the rules.

See "unChristian" by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons (p. 47)