We live in a world of laws. There is, for instance, the law of gravity – one that I have grown less enthused about as I have grown older and heavier. There are the laws of thermodynamics and physics and mathematics – most of which I do not really understand.
There are also laws of human interaction, observations about the way things are in our crazy world. Perhaps the most famous of those laws is the one that takes effect every time I pick up a tool to try to do something mechanical – Murphy’s Law.
If anything can go wrong, IT WILL!
There is another law, which perhaps, like the pirates code, is more of a guideline than an actual law. Developed by Dr. Laurence J. Peter, it is known as the Peter Principle.
People will tend to be promoted to their LEVEL OF INCOMPETENCE!
If someone is good at a job, he gets promoted. He continues to get promoted until he finds a job which he does not do well, and tends to stay there. The world, according to Dr. Peter, is run by incompetents. Extreme, but sometimes one wonders if it’s truth can be disputed.
If you have been involved in many political discussions online, you may have encountered the reality of Godwin’s Law. Mike Godwin, in 1990, developed this eponymous principle.
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.
If the discussion continues, someone is going to call someone else a Nazi or compare his positions to the policies of Adolf Hitler. Godwin developed the principle as a cautionary to attempt to warn people of the paucity of such arguments. Unfortunately, people continue to label those with whom they disagree as Nazis, label strong-armed police as “jack-booted Gestapo” and keep the truth of Godwin’s Law front and center.
A pastor in Sioux City, Iowa, has developed what is called “Miller’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law.”
Theological discussions will generally result in someone calling someone else a Pharisee!
He has observed that in theological debates and in blogs, the tendency is not to label the opposition as Nazis as much as it is to label them as Pharisees. What the Nazis are to history and politics, the Pharisees are to Christian theology. The ultimate insult you can direct against another is to call that person pharisaical.
There is little doubt that the Pharisees were the chief antagonists both of Jesus and of the apostolic church. There was the power of Rome that provided resistance, and other Jewish religious parties (scribes, Sadducees, Herodians, etc) were part of the problem. But the Pharisees were always there, opposing, scheming and militating against the work of Christ and the spread of the “Way” as Christianity spread. They were the bad guys of the gospel story, the enemies of Jesus who sought to destroy him and the church founded upon his work.
The strange thing is that history gives a vastly different verdict of the Pharisees than the New Testament does. Such historians as Josephus speak of them in glowing terms, though his accuracy and objectivity is questioned by many. But the extremely negative view of the New Testament toward this Jewish party is not generally shared.
Of course, there is not a lot known about the Pharisees. The origin of the name, most often believed to be from the Hebrew for “separate,” but there are those who think that etymology is suspect. Some have tied the Pharisees back to Ezra’s reform movement. They only came to prominence after the Maccabean revolt. Much of what has been known about them, or has been assumed from biblical studies, is disputed in the academic world.
They were the party of the people in the New Testament era. The Sadducees were elite, the country-club crowd, but the Pharisees were more populist and because of that they were popular among the people. They were the party of passion. Like Ezra, they desired for the people of Israel to walk in obedience to the Law of God. They were the party of purity, attempting to accurately exposit and apply the Law in Israel’s life. Again, much is not known about them, but what is known is that the people of Israel in the time of Jesus would have thought well of the Pharisees. They were the good guys in the Jewish religion.
That has led to the accusation that the Pharisees were given a bum rap by the New Testament writers. If you ask a Republican’s opinion about Nancy Pelosi or a Democrat’s view of George W. Bush, you are likely to get a negative review lacking any nuance or redemptive aspects. Such, according to many, is the New Testament’s view of the Pharisees. Written by Christians who stood in opposition to the Pharisees, the New Testament portrayal is biased and unfair.
Obviously, we cannot accept that. We who honor the Word as true and inerrant cannot accept the accusation of bias against the authors, because we believe the ultimate Author behind the human authors is perfect truth! How, then, do we explain the difference between the portrayal of the Pharisees in the gospels and Acts and that very different depiction in historical sources?
We need to understand that the Pharisees were not comic-book villains, the JR Ewings of first century Israel. They were sincere protectors and promoters of a religion they believed passionately. But the problem was that they had become mired in a faith that was not a saving faith and when God revealed the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world, they held on to their religious traditions and human institutions instead of embracing the hope that God had sent them. Instead of recognizing their messiah, they resisted him.
The New Testament authors were hard on the Pharisees not because they were evil villains, but because they embraced an inadequate system based on human traditions and resisted the work that God was doing. They held on to dead religion instead of accepting Jesus for whom he was.
In recent months, I have been preaching through the book of Acts on Sunday night. The Pharisees are at the core of the resistance the apostles experienced in the early days of explosive church growth. But as I worked my way through story after story, I began to have a nagging thought, one that has grown in my mind and has caused me some consternation.
I wonder if modern American Christianity does not have way too much in common with the religion practiced by the Pharisees. When I compare the faith of the New Testament church and the religion of the Pharisees, there is way too much of the Pharisee in our faith today.
The New Testament church was amazing, of course, even though it was perhaps not the perfect utopia we sometimes portray it as. It had every problem that the church faces today, but it overcame those problems and went on to turn the world upside down within 35 years. The early Christians had a passion for Jesus Christ. He had saved them and they died with him to the lives they had and rose with him to walk new lives devoted to him. They walked daily in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, whose power was in evidence on a regular basis. Things happened that could only be described as the activity of God. The supernatural was natural for them as God displayed his power through them. And they had a missional focus. Their lives were given over to the advance of God’s kingdom; every ambition, desire, plan and dream died and was subsumed into the desire to proclaim Christ.
The church was experiencing the power of the Living Christ while the Pharisees were promoting a powerless religion constrained by certain doctrines, legalistic practices and empty rituals.
This was all brought to mind in the story in Acts 3 in which Peter and John heal a man born lame. This man spent his life sitting at the gates of the Temple begging alms. The empty religion could do nothing but keep him alive in his suffering, but Peter and James healed him in the power of Christ. There was a genuine difference between the faith of the apostles and the religion of the Pharisees
This post is the beginning of a brief series of posts for me, reflecting on the theory that has begun to nag at my mind. Have we somehow fused Phariseeism and the Christian faith in modern America? I intend to explore the faith and practice of the Pharisees, identify how it differs from authentic Christianity and how, perhaps, elements of Phariseeism have infiltrated our faith.
This will not be a “blast my enemies” exercise. I’ve seen that. People have rewritten Matthew 23 to attack those who differ with them. Conservatives are Pharisees. Baptist Identity folks are Pharisees. I think that is a low blow and unworthy debate. To paint those with whom we disagree as Pharisees misses the point I think we need to consider.
My purpose is not to label anyone else as a Pharisee. That is why this series is called, “Am I a Pharisee?” not “Why You Are a Pharisee!” I think each of needs to examine ourselves and ask whether elements of Phariseeism have invaded our life, our walk, our thinking or our fellowship in Churches. I don’t need to go around labeling those with whom I disagree as Pharisees. I need to correct the log of Pharisaical tendencies from my own eye instead of trying to remove the Pharisaical specks from others’.
Phariseeism was the enemy of the work of Christ in the New Testament era and it still is today. If we wish to be all we ought to be as the people of God, we must remove any vestiges of pharisaical faith from our churches and our lives.
May God help us!
I’m not sure what kind of discussion this will inspire. It is the introduction to a series I am planning to write. I have come to believe that my life, my church and much of the modern American church is way more infected with elements of Phariseeism than we want to admit. It is holding back the church’s work.
I hope you’ll stick with me, read and interact with this series as it works out!
I plan read this series, and interact (if work doesn’t keep me from it). I have this suspicion that what you’re going to say is going to dovetail with some of my recent thoughts.
I have assumed for many years that a lot of my religious tradition was informed by Pharisaism. As a result, I compiled a rather voluminous set of essays using a satrical blog format to highlight the fundyism I was raised under. See: http://www.gamalielsdesk.blogspot.com/
Basically I views Pharisaism as the entrenched Religious Establishment and the early church as a counter-cultural disruptive element. This became even moreso when Paul threw away nearly all traditional norms in reaching out to Gentiles. I would equate this to the 9 scenarios churches will face in the coming years posted earlier on this blog.
I think it is dangerous to assume that Phariseeism is only present in the old-time fundamentalist movement. They are certainly an easy target.
My point is going to be that there is way more of Phariseeism in our average, every day evangelicalism than we want to admit.
I’m going to be trying for something a little more subtle than focusing on fundamentalists and their easily identified pharisaical tendencies.
I rather suspect that a lot of Political Correctness is essentially a secular Phariseeism. And that any group liable to get wrapped up in their own sense of self-righteousness is likely to be prone to Phariseeism.
Ben inspires me to consider the possibility that there is an “Evangelical Correctness” that may reject submission to the very presence and authority of Jesus Christ in our midst.
And such rejection may be less than open rebellion; such rejection may consist of mere contempt of the question. The refusal to even consider my own failings, when Christ is present, is a rejection of Him as Lord and Savior.
The corollary to Murphy’s Law is “Murphy was an optimist”
The real Murphy’s Law is more along the lines of “If it is possible to do something wrong, at some point, someone will do it that way.” It’s a result of said Murphy almost getting killed in an acceleration experiment because someone plugged all of the accelerator instruments backwards. It’s actually a design rule of thumb: don’t design things in such a way that they can be plugged in backwards! Dave neglected to mention the Inverse Peter Principle, possibly because it’s more commonly know among the techie community. According to the Inverse Peter Principle, if you’re competent, you get kept… Read more »
Ben,
Does this explain why so many seminary professors have references from pastors in their previous local association?
Sorry, Jerry, that one went right over my head.
Ben,
You said,”According to the Inverse Peter Principle, if you’re competent, you get kept in your position, because you’re needed there. If you’d incompetent, you’re promoted to get you out of the way. This continues until you reach a position where your incompetence isn’t quite so obvious.”
I replied (in an apparently innocent application of your words), “Does this explain why so many seminary professors have references from pastors in their previous local association?”
Kind of a corollary to the proverb, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”
“and those who can’t teach, administrate”. As the son of a college professor, I’m familiar with that one. I’m used to applying the IPP in the techie/management milieu. I must be missing something about the seminary environment, and if I make you explain it, it won’t be funny anymore. Oh, well. “Swing and a miss, strike one” for me.
Nazi!
C’mon, David. That’s below the belt…you dirty Pharisee.
Sorry Dave, according to the rules of Godwin’t law, deliberately invoking the Nazis in order to end a conversation never works.
David,
In the original post Herr Miller warned us not to trust in the paunchity of those who call others, “Nazi”. Though “paunchous” statements are more easily attributed to Goering than Hitler.
Those who are involved in certain exercise regimens have been known to have paunchous pilates.
My terrible tendency is toward a pauncheous palate.
At some point the paucity of pauncheous puns will rise to the level of incompetence and we may (might, possibly, perhaps) get back to the meaningful questions that Dave Miller is asking. Is evangelicalism pharisaical in meaningful ways?
Sadduccee!
Herr Miller? Wow! Gotta give you that one, Jerry.
And pauncheous palate? Really?
As I understand phariseeism ;the base error was unbelief. I know of few people today that hold to that error. At least in my so called evangelical circles.
I am certainly open to being corrected here. Looking forward to your posts.
was just thinking about this post, and about the scene in sacred Scripture where the Pharisee is ‘praying’, that it wasn’t a ‘prayer’ so much as ‘an exercise in self-congratulation’ . . . and not only that, an exercise involving his judgement of another person to whom he compares himself favorable . . . so that thought helps me to begins my own examination of conscience about ‘Phariseeism’ (sp?) . . . and so far, I do not like what I see in the mirror, no but being used to ‘examination of conscience’, and what follows that is healing, I… Read more »
WARNING: Old joke about to happen.
Of course, Sadduccee’s were the liberals of their day…..which is why they were sad, you see.
David
Once again, you are not being fair-I-see.
Liberal!
Be at peace, Dave.
volfan007 has now totally exhausted his meaningful perspective in three points. All he has left is his poem.
Herr Worley, I mean this in jest. In humor I have received, in humor I give.
Yankee!
Obviously, I was wrong yet again! Truly, volfan, your rhetoric is at the very top of the bell curve.
Carpetbagger!
I hate it when my sarcasmometer wraps around the needle like that. Time to get a new one.
Er, wraps around the peg.
Mt. 23:2 says the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat (in the synagogues). They are the authoritative interpreters and enforcers of the law of Moses (for the kingdom of Israel). Since the law of Moses was about much more than religious laws, their leadership in Israel was much more than religious leadership (and their synagogues were much more than “churches”). So your question about Pharisees today should include the role Moses (and the Old Testament) still play today wherever the authority of the (whole) Bible is emphasized. And the focus on a godly nation in which they live and… Read more »
Not quite getting it. Are you saying that America is God’s chosen nation now? Didn’t really get that last bit.
I put “God’s chosen nation” in quotation marks because many Christians think America is that; but I don’t. For those who do think that, their basic support for the nation, along with their “biblically-based” efforts to reform the nation–to make it more “godly,” are more like what the Pharisees were doing in the kingdom of Israel than what Jesus was doing, as he inaugurated his new (international) kingdom (of disciples).
I agree with this comment in its entirety. We introduce the Invisible Kingdom to fellow sinners through discipleship and not through “holiness” laws. Jesus will reign without the need for a written code because God will write his words on our heart and due to the failure of Satan and his minions to successfully advocate from the pit we will not need to lawyer our way out of the clear intention of God’s Word. We have to get over the inclination towards purification (hmm…I think I’ve written that recently). And instead love God with our hearts, souls, minds, and strength… Read more »
Hi Greg, I agree Jesus focused on discipleship (not reforming kingdoms of earth); and Jesus did away with most of the holiness laws of the Old Testament. The law written on the heart, promised in Jeremiah, is fulfilled with the new covenant; and this covenant blesses the pure in heart. And Jesus’ teaching emphasized loving God and our neighbor. Jesus, however, also gave details about what this love meant, and how it differed from the love in the law of Moses. For example, in Mt. 5:43 Jesus says they have heard (in their synagogues) how it was said (in the… Read more »
The allusion I was making that I presume will be fulfilled during the Millenium Reign: Jer 31:33-34 “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put My teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. 34 No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least to the greatest of them”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their wrongdoing and never… Read more »
Lucas, Are you saying that a discussion of “Pharisee-like” people (of today) should include civil and political leaders who claim allegiance to the Judeo-Christian ethics but do not follow them or enact them within their civil and political authority? Further, that a discussion of “Pharisee-like” people should include those who are responsible for leading evangelicals regarding Bible-interpretation; such as professors, and officers of religious organizations? If so, then I would agree. Dave Miller’s starting point though is “we” and his goal is (in part) to cause self-reflection. It would be awesome if some civil, and political, and organizational officers would… Read more »
Yes, the authority of the scribes and Pharisees in the synagogues was as wide as the law of Moses; they were political, economic, and religious leaders. So those in authority now in a religious nation that stresses “Judeo-Christian” principles (that are primarily drawn from the “Judeo” side, from the law of Moses for the kingdom of Israel), are especially similar to the scribes and Pharisees. These authorities would include those interpreting the Bible in the churches (professors and pastors), who use the authority of the Bible to say how the U.S. should be more like what God wanted the kingdom… Read more »
So Gods new “international kingdom ” is composed of Pietist’s and not
Triumphalist. Sounds like eschatology driving hermenautics to me.
am I wrong? Glad to be enlightened.
Did not seem like this was the direction that Dave was heading in but I certainly do not speak for Dave.
Jesus’ disciples do share some of the attributes of Pietism: a personal relationship with Christ, fostered by private devotions and small group bible study. On the other hand, Pietists tend to elevate inner religious experience over theological discussion of larger issues in the world; so their ethics tend to emphasize individual “virtues,” like abstaining from drinking, smoking, and gambling. Jesus often engaged the world around him, not only teaching his disciples, and healing the multitudes, but also confronting rulers like the scribes and Pharisees–which included complex theological discussions. And Jesus’ ethics emphasized a love that included even enemies, rather than… Read more »
Dave,
Here’s a great song to go along with your post…..I cannot get this tune out of my head, now…..
http://youtu.be/7MJoJpuyB5Y
David
Vol, your addition to this comment thread has been…oh, never mind!
lol…Dave, you have to admit that this song has a very catchy tune.
David
Dave Miller,
I don’t think the Pharisees, as individuals, were more hypocritical than other individuals that were not members of the Pharisee brotherhood. We all are certainly guilty, at times, of some of the unfaithfulness of the Pharisees.
But after years of interaction with our Lord, God in the flesh, the Pharisees not only failed to submit to Him, but they organized to oppose Him, they slandered Him, plotted to kill Him and publicly opposed Him as a group. They actively brought hardship upon those who submitted to Him.
I don’t think evangelicals have gotten to that point.
The word hypocrite especially refers to an actor, putting on a show–to further his self-interest (in power, prosperity, and/or “purity”). Especially the scribes (the leading interpreters and enforcers of the law) of the Pharisees had positioned themselves to stand out as “great.” There have been various “great” evangelicals in the U.S., who showed off their power, prosperity, and/or “purity” by putting down certain disciples of Jesus–and elevating themselves through their support of other hypocrites.
Dave, This is a good point to ponder. I think part of it is the way we reacted to the moral change in the church which has positioned men to be Pharisaical. How we responded to those who came in the church from the world with the rudiments of the world may be part of our downfall. How we dealt with the moral change of the world with our children could be considered Pharisaical, too. I never remember true Discipleship in our church as I was growing up. Never saw it after I was saved, either. How do you disciple… Read more »
Again, I’m going to try to focus on some issues beyond just the normal approach. I hope it will be a blessing.
As far as the trait of thinking that they are ‘doing pretty well’…I think Phariseeism is rampant.
Whenever the law is used to try and make people better, it is invariably watered down and made ‘manageable’. This doesn’t lead to repentance but rather to pride.
That’s why when Jesus re-presented the law (Sermon on the Mount), he did it hard. So that NO ONE was left standing…but himself.
I’m sure glad I’m not like those people who call other people “Pharisees”.
I look forward to the series, Dave.
If people are blind to the fact that they are NOT up to the obedient life and have fooled themselves into thinking that they can do it…and are leading other people onto that same path of pride and self-righteousness…then they are modern day Pharisees.
It’s ok to say it. To point it out. Maybe it will wake some up.