Here’s a chilling end to an exchange between Jesus and the religious leaders at the end of Luke 11:

Woe to you, scholars of the Law! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering. (Luke 11.52, LSB)

Pretty scary stuff. Here’s another version of it:

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. (Matthew 23.13, LSB)

Leaders have special responsibilities and special dangers to avoid. A big danger is not permitting common people to “enter.” I wrote four years ago about the pastor who didn’t like Calvary Chapels’ allowing hippies to come to church “as they were.” The leaders in Acts 15 seemed sensitive to this:

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. (Acts 15.19, NIV)

“Not make it difficult” = not “not allowing those who are entering to go in”

How might we do that?

• Insisting people dress a certain way
• Insisting they vote a certain way
• Insisting they understand a lot of obscure teaching
• Making understanding the Bible seem difficult

Everything I do should be helpful not “more difficult.” If you’ve read the Ewellogy for any time at all, you know that I work really hard to help folks hear from God through the scripture. But my approach needs to be, “Try this way of Bible reading, but if it doesn’t work, we’ll find another way. We want you to connect to Jesus.”

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15.1, 2, ESV) Yes, he does!