If you’re following our Pentateuch in a year reading plan, you will have just finished Matthew and are heading back into some potentially tedious parts of Exodus and Leviticus. Remember, if you don’t have an applicable takeaway, you can continue through Mark’s gospel one story at a time, or you can read a Psalm.

I didn’t write about nearly all that I saw reading Matthew, and that’s OK. I do want to close out with a last look at Jesus’ chief antagonists: tax collectors and sinners? Nope: “The common people heard him gladly.” (Mark 12.37, NKJV) The Romans? Again, no. A Roman centurion was praised for his great faith in Matthew 8. Pilate was weak and caved to the crowd. What crowd? The crowd of religious leaders! Those were Jesus’ chief antagonists.

We saw how he told parables against them in Matthew 21 and 22. Then in chapter 23, he lights into them directly. Here’s a condensed list of Jesus’ condemnations (see Matthew 23.13 – 36).

Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You…

• Shut off the Kingdom from people
• Devour widows’ houses
• For pretense make long prayers
• Travel to make a convert and then “make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves”
• Have silly rules on when oaths count and when they don’t
• Tithe the little things while ignoring “the important provisions of the Law: justice and mercy and faithfulness”
• Look good on the outside but not on the inside
  • E.g., cups and dishes
  • E.g., whitewashed tombs
• Build the tombs of the prophets…revealing yourselves as sons of those who murdered the prophets.

Jesus’ language was stronger than you’d expect:

• Blind fools!
• Blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
• You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

It’s not just the Pharisees in Jesus’ day. In our Bible teaching traditions, we “tithe the mint and dill and cumin” by insisting on certain interpretations of very technical issues. People argue about the nature of the atonement, for example. I don’t even understand the options. While they argue these nits, they often do it in an uncharitable way. “Justice, mercy, faithfulness” are the big things.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6.8, ESV)

We see the religious leaders and their hypocrisy right through the end of Matthew. In Matthew 26.14 – 16, we see them giving Judas 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus. Then when Judas gives it back, their piety pops up:

But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” (Matthew 27.6, ESV)

Really? It’s OK to take money out of the treasury for something unlawful, but you don’t want to violate the law by putting it back in? Then, after the resurrection, they take more money out of the treasury for illicit purposes:

…behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” (Matthew 28.11 – 14, ESV)

Bribing soldiers to lie. You can’t make this stuff up!

And the opposition from religious people continues right on into the Book of Acts:

So [the religious leaders] called [Peter and John] and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” And when they had further threatened them, they let them go… (Acts 4.18 – 21, ESV)

And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. (Acts 13.49 – 50, ESV)