Leaven of the Pharisees!

The Lord has allowed me the privilege to grow up in the home of a Baptist preacher. I cut my teeth on the bus ministry, door to door soul-winning and nursing home ministry. Seldom was the weekend that I was not involved in these activities. May I say that I still am involved in these same activities in the Church? I have my own bus route and work with some dear folks in our Church on that route. If the truth be told they do most of the work, I just get to go along for the ride!

 

Without going into an in-depth study on the subject allow me a short explanation of a recent study from the book of Mark!  I want to bring up a warning that the Saviour made to the disciples. Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees and Herod! In another place we find that He also warned them of the Leaven of the Sadducee's. As I began to study this text the question came to mind, “what is the difference between the three?” Jesus tells us in Luke that the leaven of the Pharisees is hypocrisy and in Matthew that he was warning the disciples away from the teaching or doctrine of the Pharisees. As I examined the three a pattern became evident. The Leaven of Herod was moral relativism. “I can do I as I choose” he might say! Who is John to tell me that I can’t have Herodias?  The leaven of the Sadducee's was eclectic belief. They would only accept part of the scripture as Holy writ. They denied the resurrection of the dead and the existence of angels or demons. In short they said that they would pick and choose what was right and wrong and would not submit to the special revelation of God. The Leaven of the Pharisees was Hypocrisy! Now we must ask did their teaching lead to hypocrisy or did hypocrisy lead to their teaching? How did this hypocrisy manifest itself? As to the first question I believe the doctrine arose from the hypocrisy and hypocrisy arose from their doctrine! We all deal with a measure of hypocrisy and the temptation is to justify our hypocrisy with our teaching. This the builds a greenhouse for the weed of hypocrisy. As to the second question, the doctrine was manifested in extra biblical rules that were imposed on the common man that even the Pharisees themselves could not keep. They add so much of their teaching to the word of God that the lines between “thus sayeth the Lord” and “thus saith the Rabbi” had been blurred and in some cases the word of the Rabbi was greater than the word of God.

 

We Independent Baptist remind me of the Pharisees. First let me point out I say “we”. I am a Baptist and I do believe in the autonomy of the local Church. I do not plan on leaving the Baptist teaching or joining a denomination. Yet we are loaded with the leaven of the Pharisees. We hold to our traditions without admitting what is tradition and what is biblical. I am not against tradition. I think my generation should find out why a fence was built before we tear it down. We should look long and hard at any change we wish to make or innovation we wish to add and be thoroughly persuaded what is the right course of action. On the other hand we must draw clear lines between the scripture and our opinions. We have no authority to adulterate the pulpit by spout our sectarianism.

 

We have taken precious doctrines of scripture and high jacked them to mean something totally different than what the scripture teaches. When we say that the scripture is given by inspiration, we don’t mean that God inspired the scripture and preserved it through the generation so that we can know what God said with confidence. We mean that KJV is the only inspired and preserved word of God and that all others (even those from which it came) are inferior. This teaching will get a lot of amen’s but I do not think it is pleasing to a Holy God. By this teaching we diminish the great working of God through the generation to give us his word. No doubt this comes from good intentions to persevere something that we love and that was good but we have made void the word of God by our traditions. We have come so far as to deny God’s word in the original language and to disdain the use of these texts in our study. We do not hold to a translation but to wordings and even teach that if one word is different it ceases to be God’s word. With all this said we have not even touched the extreme sect of our group!  

 

Separation from the world can be a hot topic as well! We mean by this only outward signs of conformity. If a man cuts his hair and a woman wears a skirt then they are probably ready for the pastorate. We have ostracized good people who disagree with us and even condemned them in our hearts! We mean by separation, do your ladies wear skirts or pants not are they modest or immodest. We mean do you go to the movies not do you guard your eyes from wicked things. We have exalted the attire in the service above the purpose for going to church. We have substituted the location of the building for the Church. We teach a man is a liberal if uses technology. We are making stands on the times of our service and not the reason for our services. We are tithing on the mint and leaving out the weightier matters of the Word. I grew up under many strong standards and convictions. I have heard much preaching from many men on standards and holy living and have seen hard lines drawn on these subjects. Let me say that I am against no one’s line that they personally draw on a standard or code of behavior. I do believe in soul-liberty! Now because soul-liberty is a doctrine I hold dear, I must say that I take great issue when we draw lines for other people that are extra biblical. Fundamentally we must be clear that our standards come from our relationship with God but are not a requirement to have a relationship with God. 

These subjects are the tip of the iceberg and are sufficient to have me crucified no doubt. I have yet to mention how we poorly handle the scripture to accomplish our end! We are blind to our own weakness and refuse to listen to any who disagree! When this subject is brought to light I am often met with a back handed comment that refuses to address the subject.

 

This is not what I want for my generation or the next. Nor do I believe it what the men of generations past would have encouraged. May we shout where the Bible shouts and whisper where the Bible whispers! May we preach the word and avoid our opinions in the pulpit. I was reading a blog of an Independent Baptist who was opposing expository preaching and he said “Maybe we want to skirt preaching on standards and with more "textual" or "exegetical" preaching we can avoid such issues.” I say that if by preaching the Bible I can avoid your standards then I don’t need them. 

 

Mike Montgomery