Seven Woes (Part I)

Setting and Overview
After Matthew address the crowds and disciples for the first twelve verses, he then begins to address the subjects of the previous section, the experts in the law and the Pharisees, directly. This address is primarily composed of a series of seven “woes,” arranged in a chiastic pattern, that reveal the impact of the failure of the Pharisees and experts in the law to recognize and respond to the true thrust of God’s Word. Verses 13 through 22 contain the first three of the seven woes, which serve to build up to the climactic center of the pattern in verses 23 and 24.

Exposition
A “woe” spoken to or of someone can be compassionate (so Matthew 24:19), condemning (Matthew 11:21, Isaiah 5:8-22) or a combination of the two. These woes definitely serve as a condemnation, but it should be recognized that Jesus is not speaking them as a release of anger, but rather as a fact of judgment. Jesus addresses them as hypocrites, as he did in Matthew 6 and Matthew 15, indicating that they are acting, pretending to be something on the outside that they aren’t truly on the inside. They pretend that they are doing well spiritually, that they have it all figured out and enjoy a close relationship with God and easily keep all of his commands. When people believe them, then those people look to them as examples to live up to and accept their teaching and judgment. When that teaching is to reject Jesus, the result is that not only the experts fail to enter the kingdom, but that they also prevent others from doing so.
Interestingly, during this time the Jewish people were engaging in their most aggressive evangelism to other lands. There is some question how much the Pharisees themselves were active in trying to convert foreigners to Judaism, but it is well-known that they were passionate about converting Jews to Pharisaism. Of course, if that conversion only resulted in adherence to the Pharisaic teaching and practices and hardened them against any outside teaching, then all that was accomplished was to further increase the likelihood of their eternal damnation.
Jesus then turns to the issue of oaths, which he had previously addressed in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:33-37.) In an effort to protect people against breaking an oath in God’s name (Leviticus 19:12) many traditions had been created with gave alternate methods for people to give breakable oaths that were considered to not violate the Mosaic law. Part of the result of those alternate methods was that people were less than truthful with each other (contra to Matthew 5:37), but the traditions themselves also implied a false picture of some of the objects involved being more sacred (the gold of the temple and the gift on the altar) than others (the temple, the altar, heaven.) Jesus points out the foolishness of such a distinction as in some cases the objects that they were considering to be less sacred were actually what made the other objects sacred.

Examination and Application
This section should be a sobering reminder of the potentially damaging impact of poor spiritual leadership. Are we bringing people to Jesus or keeping them away? Sometimes the story that we paint about our spiritual maturity can have a large impact. If we claim that we have it all figured out, even if our goal is to be an encouragement, we may end up leading others away from a scriptural model of spiritual growth. Instead we should be discerning but honest, making sure that what we share is not only fully truthful, but also beneficial for building others up. We also must make sure that our zeal is for the Gospel, and not for our pet topics or divisive issues. It is far better for others to come to Christ and to disagree with us on every nonsalvific issue, than for them to agree with us everywhere else, and never to know Christ.