Most of the time, they want to know who the Bad Guy is because they love the conflict between Good and Evil. When a story does not have a clear bad guy, they don\u2019t like it. They don\u2019t want moral ambiguity; they don\u2019t want characters to struggle about which side they\u2019re on. They want Batman and the Joker, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, Harry and Voldemort. They want the Good Guy versus the Bad Guy – end of story.<\/span><\/p>\n I think about my nephews when Christians talk about the Pharisees. The Pharisees seem like perfect candidates for \u201cThe Bad Guys\u201d of the Gospels, and indeed, most of the time, the gospels cast them as enemies of Jesus. \u201cBrood of vipers\u201d is the term Jesus used for them, so we\u2019re in good company when we criticize the Pharisees and those who act like them.<\/span><\/p>\n But Jesus warns us, \u201cWith the measure you use, it will be measured unto you.\u201d Christians should be more hesitant when deploying the “Pharisee” label because we need to make sure we aren\u2019t doing what my nephews do. The Pharisees aren’t heroes – but they\u2019re also not the villains we make them out to be. Which means the people we label as Pharisees might not be the villains we make them out to be. If you look back over the Gospels, you\u2019ll see Jesus has more in common with The Bad Guys than you remember. Jesus agreed with the Pharisees\u2019 teaching about the resurrection over against the Sadducees. At one point, Jesus tells his disciples, “You must be careful to do everything the Pharisees tell you.” He followed up with a warning to not act like the Pharisees, but the teachings themselves were worthy of our attention. Famously, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were Pharisees who followed Christ. The council of Jerusalem described in Acts 15 mentions “some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n So not all Pharisees were the bad guys. Neither did Jesus criticize the Pharisees\u2019 teachings wholesale. Jesus was no doubt harsh about the Pharisees\u2019 behavior, but his primary criticism was that not that they preached a totally false message. Their failure was that they took good things too far. For example, we know the Pharisees loved the Torah. They didn\u2019t want any Jew to break the Sabbath or blaspheme God. So when Jesus picks grain on the Sabbath or forgives sins, the Pharisees are right to be concerned about him breaking the Torah. Is Jesus working on the Sabbath when God himself commands rest? When Jesus forgives sins, he\u2019s implying that he has the authority to do so. If only God has such authority, then isn\u2019t this so-called forgiveness actually blasphemy?<\/span><\/p>\n Jesus himself said he didn\u2019t come to abolish the Torah but fulfill it. So it\u2019s not wrong for the Pharisees to take the Torah seriously. If Jesus is breaking the Torah, they are right to raise an eyebrow or two. The problem is that they ignore or miss the spirit of the Torah and thus prohibit what Jesus calls \u201cthe weightier matters of the law.\u201d As Jesus says, \u201cThe Sabbath is made for man, not man for Sabbath.\u201d The Pharisees are taking a good thing (in this case, the Torah) too far.<\/span><\/p>\n This is why it makes little sense when modern-day Christians label someone a Pharisee because they care about God\u2019s laws. I\u2019ve heard Christians complain about other Christians who care way too much about rules. They say, \u201cWe just need to love Jesus and not worry like the Pharisees about rule-following.” But such a distinction doesn\u2019t fit with Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees. Reread the Sermon on the Mount and listen to all of his commands, like \u201creconcile with your brother\u201d and \u201cturn the other cheek.” I don\u2019t thin Jesus would understand someone who said back to him, \u201cI don\u2019t need to care about those rules; I just want to love you!\u201d In fact, Jesus says the opposite: if you love Him, keep His commands. We shouldn\u2019t cast anyone as a Pharisaical villain simply for caring about God\u2019s laws. If so, Jesus was a villain, too.<\/span><\/p>\n Another good thing Pharisees take too far is the difficulty of keeping the Torah. It\u2019s common knowledge that the Pharisees created other laws to help the people not break the Torah. In a series of blistering criticisms of the Pharisees, Jesus says, “They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.\u201d From this passage, I\u2019ve heard Christians make an analogy that when Christian ministers preach the difficult commands of Jesus, they are acting like the Pharisees. Whether the command is \u201cdo not lust,\u201d \u201canyone who divorces his wife commits adultery,\u201d or \u201cpray for those who persecute you,\u201d ministers put heavy loads on people\u2019s<\/span> But when ministers preach on the commands of Jesus, they aren\u2019t Pharisaical by default. Jesus’ commands are hard. His yoke may be easy, but it\u2019s still a yoke. He calls us to pick up a cross and follow Him. There\u2019s no way around difficulty, struggle, or hardship. Before committing to him, Jesus commands us to count the cost! What cost should we count if following Him is a walk in the park?<\/span><\/p>\n The modern-day Pharisee is not the Christian who tells another Christian to live the costly life of faith. That\u2019s simply the job description of every Christian minister, pastor, preacher, and elder. Jesus looks at these shepherds of God\u2019s people and sees them failing at the job description. They load law after law on top of the shoulders of the people and stand back as their legs wobble and ultimately crumble under the pressure. The very leaders who point out these difficult laws watch from a distance as God’s people struggle and fail to obey those commands.<\/span><\/p>\n The modern-day Pharisee calls others to the life of faith but offers no support whatsoever. The modern-day Pharisees tell people to carry their cross, do not lift a finger to help their people in the midst of difficulty. Christians, on their best days, take on the role of Simon of Cyrene. We help each other carry our crosses.<\/span><\/p>\n Those are just two examples of the ways we misunderstand the Pharisees and mislabel people today. I could go on, but I don\u2019t have that much love for the Pharisees. My point is not to rescue them from all their wrongdoing. My point is that they took good things too far. If I\u2019m right, then we don\u2019t want to criticize the good things they said and did, especially the areas of agreement they had with Jesus. As Christians, we want to point out the lines that the Pharisees so often crossed. That way, we don’t take good things too far as they did. That way, we don\u2019t mislabel someone a Pharisee. Unfortunately for my nephews, the Pharisees wouldn\u2019t be the cut-and-dry Bad Guys that they love so much. Unfortunately for modern-day Christians, neither are the people we so often cast in their part.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n About the Author:<\/strong><\/p>\n Mitch East<\/strong> is a Master of Divinity graduate from the GST and is currently the Preaching Minister at University Avenue Church of Christ in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Pharisee Label Written by Mitch East My nephews like to ask me about \u201cbad guys.\u201d When we watch a movie or read a book, they want to identify The Enemy of every story. Sometimes, they want to know who the bad guy is because they\u2019re going to wrestle and they need to pick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8214,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nshoulders by preaching these rules.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/files\/2019\/04\/image_6483441.jpg\")
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