Mark 12:38-40 As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.”
The teachers of the law should have respected what they were teaching. In their own lives they should fulfilled the royal law of love: love your neighbor as yourself and love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and spirit. Their energy should have been wrapped up in helping people rather than lording their power over them. They should have been humble rather than arrogant and proud of their positions of religious authority. However, they chose to be fleshly leaders, desiring people to treat them as spiritual royalty, deserving the best. They coveted the people's respect and deference, but the respect they received was not deserved, for as Jesus said at another time, Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 23:27-28) Sadly, they understood the letter of the law, but they did not grasp the spirit of the law. Jesus reprimands them for their personal greed, their desire to place themselves above the people. Their hunger to please themselves is so great that they take advantage of even the most helpless in their society: They devour widows’ houses for their own personal gain.
The teachers of the law were not the false prophets Peter rails against in 2 Peter 2:13-16: They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed — an accursed brood! They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey — a beast without speech — who spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. The false prophets Peter denies sinned openly and tried to mislead the people for their own purposes. This was not necessarily the case with the teachers of the law who knew God's Word, yet would also face his punishment. They often taught the traditions of men as laws to obey, using these traditions for their own purposes, probably for self-grandiosement, to prove how much they knew and how obedient they were personally to these manmade laws. They made themselves sound wise, but they were far from God's holiness. They were not necessarily false prophets, but the results of their lifestyle and teachings were the same as the false prophets: they were doing everything for their personal gain: experts in greed. Jesus was very harsh with these people, and Peter says they are blots and blemishes, worthy of destruction. Such people, those who frustrate the grace of God, will not enter into the Kingdom of God prepared for those who love him.
In today's world, we see some teachers and preachers of the gospel use their positions of authority within the church for personal gain. If we were to look into their lives, we would see extravagant wealth and lavish lifestyles along with a lack of concern for the poor and those Christ tells us to love. This wealth usually comes from claiming they need money for their ministry, for reaching the lost. These people often have large followings, people who are caught up with the size of the crowds, the forceful delivery of the speakers, the talk of signs and wonders, the promises of God's blessings upon those who give generously to their ministry. As with the teachers of the law, these leaders are greatly respected by their followers. People seek them out and clamor to attend their conferences, to be near them. When people write books they want these important people to write a forward, so they have a stamp of approval from Christian royalty. They own jet planes to transport them from one place to the next where they stay in thousand-dollar a night luxurious hotels and eat in the best restaurants, and associate only with important people. We are not to judge others, but we can judge the fruit of another man's life. We can be aware of what we support with our resources. John tells us: test the spirits to see whether they are from God (1 John 4:1). We can test the lifestyles of others to see if they are bearing good fruit that will last for God's kingdom
The lifestyles of those we are talking about are far removed from the common people. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They love the recognition that people willingly give them. Sadly, Paul was right when he spoke of people not respecting God's truth, (People) who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. (Romans 1:25) Idol worship in the past reveals this so clearly. Now, we have people worshipping people as God's voice. Christians are often the most susceptible to this kind of distortion, for they look to people rather than God. If there seems to be a miraculous gifting in someone, believers will stampede to be near that person, even traveling thousands of miles to find a certain person to pray for them or to give them a word of knowledge or a tidbit of wisdom. But Christians forget that they are the temple of a God who resides in them fully and works in them. The Bible says: Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? (1 Corintians 3:16) God's voice is in us; his healing power is resident in each of us. Yes, there are different giftings in the body of Christ, but God's body is always whole, complete wherever you are. He is just as complete in Mongolia as He is in the United States. He is just as complete in your small town as He is in a large cosmopolitan center. We do not have to chase after people, to worship them, to put them on a pedestal. We need to pray that God will bless us where we are. Then we won't give deference to men, but to God Almighty, our Lord, our Healer!
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